In about-face, Kerry heads to Geneva to meet Russia's Lavrov
US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Russia's foreign minister in Geneva about a ceasefire deal for Syria, the State Department said on September 8 in a sudden about-face after saying it did not believe a meeting was worthwhile.
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Less than an hour after the US State Department said it had no travel to announce for Kerry, spokesman John Kirby announced that the top US diplomat would meet his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on September 9.
The Russian minister arrived in the Swiss city earlier on September 8.
"Their discussion follows recent conversations on Syria and will focus on reducing violence, expanding humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, and moving towards a political solution needed to end the civil war," Kirby said in a statement.
It was unclear what led to the change of plan. Kerry and Lavrov have spoken four times in two days to try to reach an understanding on how to halt the violence in Syria and open up humanitarian delivery routes into cities such as Aleppo.
In Geneva, Lavrov met with UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, who has the diplomatic task of trying to end the five-year war, which has claimed an estimated 400,000 lives and driven tens of thousands of refugees into Europe.
The United States and Russia have backed opposite sides in Syria's civil war, which shows little sign of ending after 5-1/2 years of violence in which half the pre-war population has been uprooted. Moscow supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington believes must eventually go.
