Moscow: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced Monday that the next round of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana will be held on July 10.
The meeting is set to coincide with a fresh round of UN-sponsored Syria peace talks that will also begin in Geneva the same day.
“The latest meeting of participants will take place in Astana on July 10,” Lavrov said at a news conference in Beijing, quoted on the foreign ministry website.
He said UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura — who announced the date for the Geneva round on Saturday — will take part in the Russia-backed talks.
It was not immediately clear whether the talks in Geneva and Astana would be held simultaneously or at different times. “The subject is currently being discussed,” a spokesman for De Mistura told AFP in Geneva.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova simply confirmed to AFP that the date of July 10 had been agreed upon.
A new round of Astana talks had been scheduled for June, but was then indefinitely postponed as key players wrangled over the future of fragile safe zones agreed for Syria in May.
