PARIS — Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday urged the incoming Trump administration to accept an invitation from Russia to attend Syria peace talks next week, which key Syrian rebel groups have signaled they would attend.
Speaking to reporters after a Mideast peace conference in Paris, Kerry said he supports the meeting that Russia, Turkey, and Iran are cosponsoring in Kazakhstan on Jan. 23 and that it ‘‘would be good’’ for the United States to be represented there.
‘‘My hope is the next administration will decide to go,’’ he said. ‘‘I think it would be good for them to go.’’
He said he hoped the meeting would make some progress and lead to a resumption of the Geneva talks, which are aimed at producing a transitional government and an eventual election in Syria.
Kerry said the discussions in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, should not be a substitute for the process that got underway in Geneva in 2012.
In Ankara last week, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the talks in Astana will include representatives of opposition groups as well as the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
After taking an active role in efforts to forge peace in Syria, the Obama administration has been watching the latest developments largely from the sidelines, as Russia and Turkey have taken the lead.
Kerry said he remained in touch with Russian, Turkish, and other officials about the situation, but noted that his time as secretary of state was winding down, with less than a week to go before the end of his term.
Russia conveyed an invitation to the meeting to Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in a phone call in late December, according to the transition team.
On Sunday, Syrian government forces shelled a village in a rebel-controlled area near Damascus, killing at least 12 civilians and injuring several others who were taking shelter in a banquet hall.
The violence in the water-rich Barada Valley, which has raged since Dec. 22, has tested the country’s fragile cease-fire and restricted the flow of water to the capital. Despite an agreement to allow maintenance workers in to fix the water facility in the rebel-controlled valley, the violence continued, also trapping an estimated 100,000 residents.
Shells fell Sunday on the al-Reem banquet hall in Deir Qanoun village in the valley that houses hundreds of civilians who had escaped the intensified fighting.
The activist-operated Wadi Barada Media Center said 12 were killed and more than 20 injured. The group posted pictures of the bloodied floors of the hall, some of them showing bodies with severed limbs.
In a video posted by the opposition Step News agency, a civilian in the hall said the shelling killed his wife, daughter, and niece. There were signs of massive destruction, with furniture broken, walls destroyed, and blood stains on the tile floors.
Fuad Abu Hattab, an exiled resident of Barada Valley and an activist with the group, said medical teams have been unable to move around the valley because of the fighting and it is not clear if the dozens of injured are getting any immediate care. Abu Hattab said the center has served as a shelter for many displaced civilians who escaped the ongoing violence in the valley.
