“There is still a lot of work to do to bring a conference about. For this reason we have come to a conclusion today that it will not be possible to hold this conference in June,” Brahimi said after a meeting with Russian and US officials in Geneva on Wednesday.

The conference was likely to be held in the Swiss city in mid-June, but according to Brahimi, the event was postponed to July with no exact date and agenda set for the meeting yet.
“We will be continuing our consultations with Russia and the US to see 'windows of opportunities' to hold the conference as soon as possible, hopefully in July,” he said.

The prospects of holding the international meeting in June began to diminish last week after the EU announced it had decided to lift its arms embargo on Syria to enable the member states to send arms to foreign-backed militants fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The move was followed by Russia’s announcement that it would go ahead with a contract with Syria to send its state-of-the-art S-300 missiles to the Arab country to prevent “some hotheads” from entering the conflict.

The US also said on Monday that it would deploy Patriot missiles and F16 fighter jets to Jordan, further complicating the situation in Syria.

Last year’s conference in Geneva turned out to be abortive as the plan the participants carved out failed to consider a role for President Assad in the transitional government.