On Jan. 13, US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi in Paris to discuss plans for the Geneva II conference, scheduled to commence on Jan. 22 in Montreaux, Switzerland.

On the agenda will be whether Iran should be invited to Geneva II, which both Lavrov and Brahimi support.

Kerry has said he welcomes a positive Iranian role in Syria, even from the “sidelines” of Geneva II, and that Iran could be invited if it accepted the Geneva Communique.

This all comes as the P5+1 countries and Iran have agreed for implementation to begin Jan. 20 on the "joint plan of action" to address Iran’s nuclear program, as Laura Rozen reports, and as Sigrid Kaag, head of the Joint Mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said this week that the first shipment of chemical materials out of Syria was a “remarkable achievement” and that she expected the full elimination of chemical weapons material to be achieved by the June 2014 deadline.