Brahimi: Alleged chemical weapon attack shows Syria peace talks urgent

GENEVA | (Reuters) - Arab League-United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi believes that the alleged chemical weapon attack in Syria this week should speed up work towards an international peace conference, his spokeswoman said on Friday.

"He thinks that the recent escalation and grave (event) that happened in Syria, in Damascus close to the capital, should put an urgency to Geneva 2, to move forward on the political (talks) and should prove to the world that there is no military solution," Khawla Mattar told a news briefing in Geneva.
"Geneva 2" means a follow-up to a ministerial meeting on Syria held in the Swiss city on June 30, 2012, chaired by Brahimi's predecessor as Arab League-U.N. envoy, Kofi Annan.

Brahimi pressing on with plans for a conference aimed at ending the fighting.

UN peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi has he is pressing on with plans for a conference aimed at ending the fighting, though no firm date is in sight.
"It is extremely difficult to bring people who have been killing one another for two years just by a magic wand to a conference like this. It will take time, but I hope it will happen," Brahimi told a handful of reporters on the sidelines of an event in Washington on Monday.
"There are still issues that have not been solved. We are hopeful. That's all we can say."
The talks, dubbed Geneva 2, were initially planned for late May after the idea was first floated during a Moscow meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. But amid difficulties on agreeing who should sit at the table, the calendar slipped into June, and then July, with the best estimates now hoping for a date in September.
There is also disagreement between the United States and Russia about whether Iran should attend the talks, which are aimed at bringing together the opposition and the Syrian regime to find a political solution to end a conflict  that is now in its third year. - AFP