Russia: U.S. Envoy Flying to Moscow for Syria Talks

A U.S. State Department team will visit Moscow this week to discuss the Syria crisis, a top official said Tuesday as Western pressure mounted on Russia to back new action against its Soviet-era ally.

"We are in the process of meeting (U.S. Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton's deputies who work on the Middle East and Syria in particular," Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the RIA Novosti state news agency.

"And in literally three days' time, we are expecting the arrival in Moscow of State Department representatives," he said.

RIA Novosti said the delegation would be headed by Frederic Hof, the U.S. Special Coordinator for Regional Affairs and a pointman on Syrian issues.

Clinton said this weekend she wanted to engage Russia on a transition in Syria that would lead to the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose ouster Moscow has refused to back.

She added that she had made "very clear" to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the weekend that "we have to focus on a path forward for a political transition".

But Bogdanov denied Moscow was holding such discussions with Washington at this stage.

"No, we are not conducting such negotiations," Bogdanov told RIA Novosti when asked whether the issue had been raised during Moscow's contacts with the U.S. State Department.

He signaled that Russia would focus in the talks on saving international mediator Kofi Annan's tattered peace plan for Syria rather than discussing what options to pursue next.

And he reaffirmed Russia's firm refusal to support foreign military intervention, adding that the idea of sending in U.N. peacekeepers in place of the current team of 300 unarmed monitors "was not yet under discussion".

"We are categorically against foreign military intervention, against a repeat of the Libya scenario because it failed to solve many problems."

Russia had jointly with China blocked two U.N. Security Council resolutions against the Assad regime out of fear that they might be used as a pretext for subsequent military strikes.

It has claimed being cheated by the West into giving tacit approval of a no-fly zone that was established over Libya last year. NATO used that resolution's wording to pursue military strikes against Russia's close trading partner.

But Russia has recently distanced itself from Assad, insisting it was not backing his leadership and was willing to support negotiations between his inner circle and the opposition instead.