Russia seeks to lower expectations before new Syria talks

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's foreign minister sought Friday to lower expectations before another round of international talks on Syria as fighting continued in the besieged city of Aleppo.

Sergey Lavrov is set to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and counterparts from several other nations in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday. The meeting will be the first face-to-face contact between the two men since Washington suspended bilateral diplomatic contact with Moscow earlier this month.

"I don't have any particular expectations," Lavrov said. "So far, we haven't seen our partners to make any steps to get closer to fulfilling the agreements that we have."

A U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire last month collapsed in less than a week amid renewed fighting for Aleppo, where Russian warplanes are backing the Syrian army offensive.

Last weekend, rival resolutions on Syria backed by the West and Russia were defeated in the U.N. Security Council. Russia vetoed a French-drafted resolution demanding an immediate halt to the Russian and Syrian bombing of the rebel-held eastern part of Aleppo. A rival Russian draft also failed to pass.

Lavrov's deputy, Gennady Gatilov, said Friday that a new U.N. Security Council resolution must endorse provisions of the U.S.-Russian truce and include U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura's proposal for the Fatah al-Sham Front to leave Aleppo in exchange for a halt in Russian and Syrian army attacks.

The militant group already has rejected de Mistura's suggestion.

Another deputy Russian foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, told RIA Novosti news agency that Russia thinks that Iran, Iraq and Egypt must be allowed to join Saturday's talks in Lausanne.