International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and senior envoys from Russia and the United States called for a political solution to end Syria's crisis on Friday (January 11) but reached no breakthrough.
After closed-door talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Brahimi read from a joint statement.
"We stressed again that in our view there was no military solution to this conflict. We underscored the necessity to reach a political solution based on the Geneva communique of 30 June 2012,"
"If you are asking me whether the solution is around the corner, I'm not sure that is the case. But what I am certain of is that it is an absolute necessity for people to continue to work for a peaceful solution and that it is the wider international community, especially members of the (U.N.) Security Council that can really create the opening that is necessary to start effectively solving the problem", Brahimi, in answer to a question, told reporters in Geneva.
Russia and the United States back opposing sides in Syria's 21-month-old conflict between President Bashar al-Assad's government forces and rebels fighting to topple him.
Source: Reuters