Kerry: Syria peace talks may be delayed for a day or two

“It is likely the 25th may slip by a few days for practical reasons”, said Jessy Chahine, a spokeswoman for U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is scheduled to host the talks. “So we’ll see where we are”.

After that meeting, Lavrov said the US and Russian Federation agreed that the Syria talks should not be postponed until next month.

Kerry’s spokesman, John Kirby, said Kerry and Lavrov discussed “the importance of maintaining progress toward a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria”. Among other suggestions, Moscow seeks participation by the political opposition in Syria, even if it is tolerated by Assad’s government.

The officials say Russian Federation wants to add names to the delegation that opposition groups backed by Saudi Arabia announced this week.

Syrian opposition figures say groups opposed to President Bashar Assad are still divided ahead of peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva next week.

The question of exactly who will represent the divided Syrian opposition at the talks has proven vexing.

And then, Russia, in response, has requested that there be representatives of the Kurdish opposition on the opposition negotiation team.

Among Russia’s objections is the inclusion of Mr Mohamad Alloush as chief negotiator for the opposition. The government wants an end to attacks by the Jaysh al-Islam rebel group on Damascus. Many of Assad’s opponents view it as a legitimate part of the opposition.

The Obama administration policy in Syria has evolved considerably since January 2014, when a round of Syrian peace negotiations took place in Switzerland.

REUTERS/Ari JalalKurdish Peshmerga fighters take a rest on the outskirts of Mosul January 30, 2015.

“We don’t want to waste time”, Kerry said.

Hijab accused Russia on Wednesday of obstructing the talks by trying to impose conditions on which opposition groups can participate, and said the opposition will not take part in talks while Syrians die from blockades and Russian and government airstrikes. The last day to start the talks was Friday, Jan. 29, the diplomat said.

Other opposition figures also protested and the pro-regime Al-Watan daily called Alloush’s appointment “a provocative step with the sole goal of thwarting any possible dialogue”. “We just see this as logistical”, Mr Kerry told journalists during a roundtable discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Either Kerry will convince the Saudis to expand (the opposition representation) or we will opt for a second delegation”.

However, they would “follow them in those forms which will be most useful for the Syrians to reach agreements, how they will jointly solve the problems of the transition period, what the new constitution will look like, how to prepare new elections and many other issues”, he said. “It doesn’t seem desirable to me that there is a third force”, the French diplomat said.