Kerry, Lavrov to attend Lebanon talks: France

[JI7]

PARIS: The US and Russian foreign ministers will attend French-sponsored talks in Paris Wednesday on helping Lebanon cope with the conflict in Syria, but the talks look set to be overshadowed by the Ukraine crisis, France said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to come for the meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon meeting but French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday that Russia's Sergei Lavrov would also attend the conference.

http://www.brecorder.com/top-news/1-front-top-news/160471-kerry-lavrov-to-attend-lebanon-talks-france.html

[MBS]

1. will be interesting to see how this turns out.

From what I can tell (at least judging from the videos), Kerry and Lavrov seem to have a warm relationship. Will this be affected by the crisis? Or will it help them come up with a just diplomatic solution? I hope the latter.

[Luftmensch067]

2. I hope so, too

But I'm afraid that it may be rather that Lavrov has to visibly demonstrate his loyalty to Putin (whatever his private friendship may be with Kerry) by appearing to distance himself from Kerry. My impression has been that thus far Kerry and Lavrov have been accomplishing US-Russian cooperation in ways that Obama and Putin couldn't or wouldn't. But Putin seems determined to favor aggression and I am sadly expecting Lavrov to be told to fall in line. I would love to be wrong!!!

[karynnj]

3. What I worry about is that many of the Ukraine articles, suggest that Lavrov

told Kerry that Russia was NOT preparing to invade - when they were. It is hard to believe that Lavrov was not in the circle knowing what was going to happen.

We all know that JK really detests people who don't tell the truth, but we also know that when it was possible to improve the chances for a climate change bill, Kerry was willing to personally call T bone Pickens, who funded much of the SBVT garbage.

As the US and Russia have a role in Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, I think the fact that Kerry focuses on the goals - and never makes it about himself - that it will not keep Kerry from working with him as closely as before - and still respecting what he respected before.

(Just as he would never publicly (or with a foreign envoy) do anything against an Obama policy, he likely sees that Lavrov might have been boxed in.)

While it seems that Russia is quickly moving against Ukraine, there are already signs that the Russian economy will be impacted - the ruble has fallen move today against the dollar. (incidentally, politifacts proves it can never say a Kerry statement is 100% true - he said the ruble is falling - and- in fact - it fell over 10% since January. They take a longer look and argue that Russia wanted it to fall - which was true last year, but not likely since January. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/mar/02/john-kerry/john-kerry-tells-cbs-viewers-russian-isolation-com/ )