Syria peace conference likely in January: envoys

A meeting of UN, US and Russian envoys tomorrow is expected to agree that a Syria peace conference should be held in January, diplomats said.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon is to announce the date shortly after the meeting in Geneva, the envoys said.
The conference on the worsening 32-month-old war has been repeatedly delayed amid wrangling over who should represent the Syrian opposition and government and whether countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia should take part.
UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, Russian deputy foreign ministers Mikhail Bogdanov and Gennady Gatilov and US Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman are to hold the Geneva talks tomorrow.

"They have patched over enough of the differences that the conference will be held, but it will miss Ban's aim of December. It is now set for early January," one UN diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"It may slip into January but it will be announced," added a second UN diplomat.

Diplomats from all the governments involved in preparations have warned that events in Syria could still upset the planned conference.
Following past postponements, the UN has avoided expressing any optimism about the chances of calling a conference this time.
"The point of the meeting tomorrow is to take stock of where we stand. We'll see at that point what we can say about arrangements," UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters on Friday.

Russia and the United States have been pressing since May for a followup to a Geneva meeting in June 2012, when the major powers agreed a declaration calling for a transitional government in Syria.
Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's key ally, has been pressing the government to cooperate on the conference. The United States, Britain and France have been working on the fractured Syrian opposition.
The followup, widely named Geneva II, would concentrate on how the transition can be established.