Moscow, May 20 (IANS/RIA Novosti): The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that a conference on the Syrian settlement will take place "very soon", possibly at the beginning of June, after consulting UN Security Council permanent members.

“As I have been asked by the parties to convene this conference on the auspices of the United Nations, I’m now actively engaging with all the parties I have spoken to: the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, all other key parties,” the UN chief said here Sunday.

“We are still trying to look at a window possibility in early June but this is a matter of still further consultations,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday after a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry that an international conference on Syria at a ministerial-level may be held in Geneva if both sides of the Syrian conflict agreed to participate in the event.

The conference would be a follow-up to last year’s international meeting in Geneva that drafted a peace roadmap for Syria.

Syria has been locked in an increasingly bloody civil war since demonstrations broke out against Bashar al- Assad regime in March 2011.

According to UN estimates, at least 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.