SYRIAN Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil has said a long-delayed international conference aimed at bringing the Syrian government and opposition together to seek an end to the civil war is scheduled for next month.
Mr Jamil named the dates as November 23-24 when asked at a news conference in Moscow whether plans for the Geneva 2 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 said: "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 peace talks will take place in mid-November as planned.
Mr Jamil has made several visits to Russia during the conflict that has killed more than 120,000 people since it began with pro-democracy protests in March 2011. He said the conference was needed because "everyone is at a dead-end".
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