Lausanne — US Secretary of State John Kerry was trying to build momentum behind a new drive to end the Syrian civil war on Sunday after high-level talks with Russia and the country’s neighbours. Kerry was in London to brief Washington’s European allies after "brainstorming" talks in Lausanne with the main players in Syria’s bloody five-year-old conflict. The Swiss meeting did not produce a concrete plan to restore the truce that collapsed in September amid bitter recriminations between Washington and Moscow and new fighting on the ground. But Kerry insisted the new, leaner contact group had come up with some plausible ideas that would be fleshed out in the coming days and might lead to a new, stronger ceasefire. "The way it wrapped up was to have several ideas that need to be quickly followed up," he said after talks with Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey. "The next contact on trying to follow up on this is going to be immediately, because this is urg...
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