[3] On 23 October 2015, foreign ministers John Kerry of the U.S., Sergey Lavrov of Russia, Adel al-Jubeir of Saudi Arabia and Feridun Sinirlioğlu of Turkey met in Vienna, preparing new international talks aiming at peace in Syria.

[6] US Secretary of State John Kerry also had meetings with his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz, the UN envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, as well as Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, Sergey Lavrov of Russia, Adel al-Jubeir of Saudi Arabia, and Feridun Sinirlioğlu of Turkey.

[7][8] Also, Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran had a bilateral meeting with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini.

[10][4][3] Participating in the 30 October Vienna talks were the US, UK, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, China, France, Germany, Italy as well as the European Union.

[19][20][21][22] The ISSG: Russia and the US remained at discord about a possible role of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in any political transition, but their foreign ministers, Lavrov and Kerry, both played down those differences.

[25] The UN Security Council in its resolution 2254 (2015) of 18 December 2015 which unanimously passed, again commended “a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition based on the Geneva Communiqué” of 30 June 2012, and endorsed the "Vienna Statements" and transitional plan of the ISSG of 30 October and 14 November 2015 (see above):[26][27][28] The resolution acknowledged the "role of the ISSG as the central platform to facilitate the United Nations’ efforts to achieve a lasting political settlement in Syria".

[30] These talks were suspended on 3 February, purportedly because UN envoy Staffan de Mistura did not want the UN to be associated with the Syrian government's military advance against rebels north of Aleppo, backed by Russian airstrikes.