Annan invites Turkey to Geneva meeting on Syria

UN envoy Kofi Annan has invited Turkey to the upcoming Geneva meeting of world powers to find ways of ending the violence in Syria.

Annan said on Wednesday that the action group for Syria will convene at the ministerial level in Geneva on Saturday. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will be joined by other top diplomats from the UN Security Council nations, including Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar. Iran was not invited to the meeting.

Russia and the United States have both said they want to help UN-Arab League envoy Annan as he tries to revive a six-point peace plan for Syria. But Russia and China, two of the Security Council’s five permanent members, have twice shielded Syria from UN sanctions over a crackdown on the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Separately, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and a panel of UN human rights investigators headed by Brazilian professor and diplomat Paulo Sergio Pinheiro will report Wednesday to the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva. <Cihan>

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