U.N. envoy hopes for Syria peace conference within weeks

[YahooNews]

The United Nations envoy to Syria said on Friday he hoped a long-delayed peace conference could still be held in the next few weeks despite obstacles that have held it up for months. The so-called Geneva 2 conference, intended to bring Syria's warring sides to the negotiating table, has been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between world powers, divisions among the opposition and the inflexible positions of both sides. Arab and Western officials said this week that international powers were unlikely to meet their goal of holding the conference in November. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, speaking at a news conference in Damascus after a trip to shore up support for the talks, said he would go to Geneva to meet U.S. and Russian representatives.