Turkey, US discuss Syria before UN talks

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavu?o?lu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry exchanged their views over the violence in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, as the latter held urgent talks in Geneva in a bid to bolster a fragile, partial cease-fire in Syria. 

The U.N. special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura was also scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on May 3, the Russian foreign ministry said. 

Çavu?o?lu and Kerry held a telephone conversation late on May 1, Turkish diplomatic sources told Hürriyet Daily News on May 2. 

"Developments taking place in Syria in recent days and particularly the attacks on civilians in Aleppo were on the agenda of the conversation," the diplomatic sources, speaking under customary condition of anonymity, said.

It was not immediately clear whether Kerry or Çavu?o?lu initiated the phone conversation.

The telephone conversation came hours before Kerry met his Jordanian counterpart, Nasser Judeh, in Geneva, where he on May 2 met Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and de Mistura later in the day. 

Kerry said that intense work was underway to try and restore the cessation of hostilities in Syria, particularly in Aleppo.

Kerry said he would call Lavrov later in the day to press for the cease-fire to be restored.

Kerry also said he hoped for greater clarity over the next day or so on restoring a nationwide ceasefire in Syria and had agreed with Russia on strengthened monitoring once it was in place. 

"Both sides, the opposition and the regime, have contributed to this chaos, and we are working over the next hours intensely in order to try to restore the cessation of hostilities," Kerry told reporters in Geneva after...