Annan ‘Hopeful’ Over Geneva Talks on Syria - http://is.gd/i3e0yy -#world
MOSCOW — As global powers prepared for an 11th hour effort to revive the stalled peace effort in Syria, Kofi Annan, the special envoy and mediator who called the meeting, said on Friday he was optimistic that that talks in Geneva would yield an acceptable result despite Russian calls for changes in his settlement ideas.
“I think we are going to have a good meeting” on Saturday, Mr. Annan told Reuters television in Geneva as senior officials held preparatory talks in advance of the weekend encounter of foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I am optimistic.”
The talks would end “with an acceptable result", he said, despite news reports suggesting that differences between Russia and other Western and Arab nations at the Geneva meeting had raised new obstacles to an agreement.
