Geneva: The United Nations plans to precede its internationally brokered peace talks between Syria's warring sides next month with a one-day meeting of foreign ministers in the Swiss city of Montreux, officials said on Tuesday.
A daylong gathering for speeches by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and more than two dozen other foreign ministers is planned for Jan. 22 at a Montreux hotel.
The session is taking place at the opposite end of Lake Geneva to the U.N. European headquarters because a luxury watch fair has taken up all the hotel rooms in Geneva, Khawla Mattar, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters Tuesday.
Montreux, home of the famous jazz festival, was chosen because it has the facilities for such a high-profile gathering.
Mattar said the foreign ministers will demonstrate “that there is global interest in solving” the Syria crisis.
