Segment from State Dept interview: “I’ll leave it to the Secretary to talk about his ideas on Syria and just simply say again, on all these burning and pressing issues, this one is at or very near the top of the list, and I’m sure he’ll discuss it with each of the leaders. And as you know, he also took the initiative to try to get together with a group of leaders, not just the Europeans but from the regions – from the region a little bit later on the trip. But I’ll leave it to him to talk about the approach that he wants to take on Syria. The Russia piece we’ve been focused on for some time, because we’ve been absolutely clear that there needs to be a political transition, and we felt that Russia could play a key role in convincing the regime and everyone that there needs to be that political transition. That’s what we met about, and a lot of you were there in Geneva last year. We’re following up on that, and I’m sure at the top of his agenda with Minister Lavrov we’ll be urging Russia to support what we all believe to be true, which is that we need to move on from the regime and have a political transition in Syria. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/02/205129.htm