Russia, US agree on mid-November for Syria peace talks: Lavrov

Russia and the US have agreed to push for holding Syria peace talks in mid-November, AFP reports according to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday after talks with his US counterpart John Kerry. "We advocate holding the international conference (on Syria) in mid-November," Lavrov told journalists after holding talks with Kerry in Bali, Indonesia. "Today we agreed on the steps needed for both the government and the opposition to come to the conference," Lavrov was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency. The so-called Geneva-2 peace conference aims to bring together the warring sides in the country where more than 115,000 people have been killed since the start of an uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, according to activists. UN chief Ban Ki-moon also proposed mid-November for the conference late last month during his first meeting with Syria's opposition National Coalition chief Ahmad Jarba, who said he was ready to send a delegation to the meeting. UN-Arab League peace envoy Brahimi told France's TV5 Monde Sunday that he hoped the two sides would agree to attend a peace conference in Geneva in mid-November "without preconditions".