page_title: 50th Munich Security Conference
section_title: Middle east
hierarchical_section_title: 50th Munich Security Conference / Middle east
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov flank United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi before a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on January 31, 2014. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]
context_page_description: The 50th Munich Security Conference was held from 31 January to 2 February 2014. At the event, more than 400 international guests attended, including 20 Heads of State and Government, 50 foreign and defense ministers and 90 government delegations. Joachim Gauck was the first German Federal President to ever hold the opening speech.
context_section_description: The conference also housed a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in which the EU Representative Ashton put economic aid for Israelis and Palestinians in view that both parties consented to a peace agreement. US Secretary of State Kerry had previously referred to a failure of the Middle East negotiations as "unacceptable".
  After the previously unsuccessful negotiations in Geneva of the Syrian civil war parties, discussions at the security conference took no further approach towards the Syrian conflict. Despite his announcement of follow-up negotiations designated UN special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi stated the international peace efforts in Syria had failed. Brahimi warned of a further escalation of the situation in Syria. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the parties in conflict to lead future negotiations "serious and sincere". The Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed the call of his country for a ceasefire in Syria, referring to the difficulties of monitoring such actions.
caption: Kerry, Ban Ki-moon, Brahimi, and Lavrov before a meeting on Syria
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