UN confirms holding Syria Geneva II conference in 2 parts beginning January 22

The UN confirmed that the Geneva II Conference on Syria will be held in two parts, the first to be held on January 22nd in the Swiss town of Montreux, and the second, after one day break, on January 24th in Geneva, as originally planned. The conference will bring the Syrian Government and the opposition to a negotiating table for the first time since the conflict started in March 2011 between government forces and initially peaceful protesters seeking freedom and reforms. The crisis later degenerated into a civil war. "After the date (January 22nd) had been chosen, it was realized that there would be other events taking place in Geneva at the same time," Khawla Mattar, the spokeswoman for Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, said in Geneva. The World Economic Forum is due to begin in Davos on 22 January with officials and VIPs passing through Geneva, as well as at least one trade fair planned in Geneva, she explained. Rather than change the date, which was chosen by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon because of the urgency of the situation in Syria, the first part of the Conference was moved to Montreux due to "logistics, security, availability of accommodation and conference facilities," she added. "(During) The one-day meeting in Montreux ... delegations of all invited countries ... would have an opportunity to express their views on the issue," she stated, adding that the second part, in Geneva, would then be restricted to only the two Syrian delegations - Government and opposition - and Joint Special Representative Brahimi. The talks would not be open-ended, and a time frame would be set once the negotiations started, she announced. The aim of Geneva II Conference is to get the warring parties in Syria to agree to a transitional governing body with full executive powers that would lead to holding of elections. Further details of the Conference are expected to be discussed this Friday in a trilateral meeting among Brahimi, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Ministers Mikhail Bogdanov. The trilateral meeting is scheduled to be held in Geneva on Friday morning. Participants will then be joined in the afternoon by the other Security Council's permanent members - China, France and the United Kingdom - as well as the envoys of the League of Arab States, European Union and Syria's immediate neighbours - Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey. In addition to logistics, Friday's meeting will discuss items such as the list of countries to be invited to the Geneva II Conference, and the composition of the Syrian Government and opposition delegations. Matter said Brahimi would like to know the names of participants as soon as possible, by the end of the year the latest, so that he could commence preliminary consultations with them. Over 100,000 people have been killed and over nine million were affected by the conflict, with 2.3 million of them refugees in neighbouring countries.