Moscow wants inter-Syrian agreements to be stipulated in UN resolution

"When Syrians agree on everything, the international conference will have to approve these decisions and agree on how the international community will help in implementing these decisions," Bogdanov told reporters on Sunday.

"I mean economic and financial assistance and probably some other assistance regarding a possible UN Security Council resolution in order to help Syrians most efficiently to implement the decisions they will reach themselves in the framework of the conference," Bogdanov said.

When asked by Interfax to comment on statements of Paris questioning the success of the Geneva II international conference, Bogdanov said that the French officials assured the Russian colleagues that their stance was misunderstood.

"Contacts at various levels took place and the French ambassador came to us and said that they have been quoted incorrectly, someone has misunderstood," the Russian deputy foreign minister said.

"We are in constant contact with our French colleagues. They started correcting and saying that the statements of their minister that the conference was destined to fail was misunderstood," Bogdanov said.

France "has doubts but I think that in principle doubts are justified to a certain degree because the stances of the Syrian parties do not match for now," Bogdanov said.

"But the conference is gathered exactly for this, so that they exchange some stances. I realize that initially the stances could be requests and could be of little compatibility but the negotiations are begun in order to start searching for things in common on the basis of distant stances and to reach common denominator eventually," Bogdanov said.

Syrian foreign minister to lead delegation at Geneva-2 - Russian diplomat

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem will lead his country's delegation to the upcoming Geneva II international conference scheduled for January 22, 2014, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

Geneva-2: Syrian opposition has still not announced delegation - Russian diplomat

The Syrian opposition has still not announced the composition of its delegation to take part in the Geneva II international conference, which jeopardizes the conference itself, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said.

"There have lately been signals from some [Syrian] opposition members on the desirability of shifting the time of the conference. This is related primarily to the opposition's unpreparedness to announce the composition of its delegation by the planned date, December 27," Gatilov told journalists.

"The key point is that the opposition should announce the composition of its delegation. Without resolving this issue, it is hard to expect that the conference will take place," he added.