Foreign and defense ministers from the United States and Russia have agreed to host a peace conference on Syria in Geneva as soon as possible.

 

　　The consensus was reached between the two sides following their "2+2" meeting in Washington.

 

　　Sergei Lavrov is the Russian Foreign Minister.

 

　　"Regarding the international agenda, we spoke a lot about Syria. Our opinions are very much the same about what we need to do. We must convene Geneva II as quickly as possible, with the US Russian initiative that came out of John Kerry's visit to Moscow on July 7th this year."

 

　　The ministers also agreed to meet again by the end of the moth to prepare for the talks.

 

　　The meeting between Lavrov, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and their U.S counterparts comes as relations between the two sides chilled following Moscow's decision to grant asylum to former U.S intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

 

　　Earlier, U.S president Barack Obama called off a planned summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

 

　　Both Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged their sharp differences over Snowden and other issues going into the talks.

 

　　However, Kerry says the two countries need to find ways to work around their differences and make progress on issues including Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

 

　　Washington was also invited to observe a joint Russia-Belarus military drill that will involve some 13,000 troops.

 

　　Russia and the U.S initially announced that they would try to hold the peace conference on Syria by the end of May.

 

　　However the date has kept being pushed back partly due to disagreement among the Syrian rebels over who should represent them.