NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / AFP-Getty Images
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, left, speaks with his visiting Egypt counterpart Mohamed Amr as they meet on the Syrian crisis in Moscow on Dec. 28.
By Reuters
Russia urged the Syrian government on Friday to act on its stated readiness for dialogue with its opponents, throwing its weight behind a diplomatic push to end a 21-month-old conflict in Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he had urged Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad to emphasize his government's openness to dialogue with the opposition during talks in Moscow on Thursday.
"We actively encouraged ... the Syrian leadership to make as concrete as possible its declared readiness for dialogue with the opposition," Lavrov told reporters after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Kamel Amr in Moscow.
He said the Syrian government should stress its readiness for talks on the widest possible range of matters, in line with an international agreement in Geneva last June calling for a transitional government.
"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," added Lavrov, who last week said that neither side would win by force.
Putin says fate of Assad unimportant to him
Russia expects to meet a senior U.S. diplomat on Syria next month to discuss with international Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi his plans to end the civil war there, the Kremlin's envoy to the region said earlier on Friday.
Brahimi will visit Moscow on Saturday for talks on the results of his negotiations with Syrian President Bashar Assad and his opponents during a five-day trip to Damascus in which he called for political change to end the bloodshed.
"We will listen to what Lakhdar Brahimi has to say about the situation in Syria, and after that, probably, there will be a decision to hold a new meeting of the 'three Bs'," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the RIA news agency -- in a word play on the first letter of the diplomats' last names.
Bogdanov, U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns and Brahimi, the joint special representative of the United Nations and the Arab League, agreed that a political solution to the crisis was necessary and possible in talks earlier this month.
Bogdanov, the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East Affairs, said the three would meet again in January after the holidays.
Russia has also invited the head of the internationally-recognized, opposition Syrian National Council, Moaz al-Khatib, to talks, he said, in comments that appeared underline Moscow's commitment to helping Brahimi seek a way out of the crisis.
Brahimi, who has called for a transitional government to rule until elections, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power in Syria, where more than 44,000 people have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.
Past peace efforts have floundered as what began as peaceful protests in March 2011 turned into civil war. The conflict has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shiite-rooted Alawite minority.
Assad forces accused of using 'poisonous gases'
World powers think Russia, which has given Assad military and diplomatic aid during the uprising, has the ear of Syria's government and must be a central player in any peace talks.
Moscow has tried to distance itself from Assad in recent months and has denied it is propping him up. But it maintains Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for talks and has repeatedly said Western powers should not impose solutions on Syria.
Lavrov warned on Thursday that time was running out to find a peaceful solution to the conflict and halt a descent into "bloody chaos".
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