"I cannot say, it is up to [UN's Syria envoy Staffan] de Mistura, but we want to begin it as soon as possible, in the coming days," Qadri Jamil told reporters at a press conference at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency when asked about the beginning of intra-Syrian talks in Geneva.
Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a phone talk Monday, agreeing that de Mistura should hastily announce the date of intra-Syrian peace negotiations in Geneva.
In December, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Syrian settlement, which reaffirmed the goals of the Vienna agreements to bring the entire spectrum of the political groups in the crisis-torn country to the negotiating table and stated that the next round of the talks would take place in January, 2016.
January 25 was initially set as the target day for the first round of intra-Syrian talks, with January 27 later offered as a possible date of the first sit-down. The UN Office in Geneva announced on January 22 the much-anticipated talks were likely to be postponed for a few days.
