Syria crisis: date set for Geneva peace talks, says deputy PM
Qadri Jamil tells reporters conference, which has been planned since May, will take place between 23 and 24 November
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Qadri Jamil told a press conference in Moscow international peace talks aimed at ending the Syria conflict would take place in November. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images
Syria's deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, said a long-delayed international conference aimed at bringing the government and opposition together to seek an end to the civil war is scheduled for 23 – 24 November.
Jamil named the dates when asked at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday whether plans for the Geneva II conference, which Russia and the US have been trying to organise since May, had been pushed back from mid November.
Asked to confirm the dates, he told Reuters: "Yes, this is what [UN secretary general] Ban Ki-moon is saying, not me."
The deal reached last month for Syria to scrap its chemical weapons arsenal rekindled efforts to convene the conference, but the UN peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has said it was not certain that peace talks would take place in mid November.
Jamil has made several visits to Russia during the conflict, which has left more than 120,000 people dead since it began with pro-democracy protests in March 2011.
He said the conference was needed because "everyone is at a dead end – a military and political dead end".
He added: "Geneva is a way out for everyone: the Americans, Russia, the Syrian regime and the opposition. Whoever realises this first will benefit.
"Whoever does not realise it will find himself overboard, outside the political process.
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