Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have agreed to meet for talks on Syria and Ukraine Wednesday in Zurich.
The U.S. State Department said Thursday Lavrov and Kerry agreed to meet after speaking by telephone.
The Russian foreign ministry said Kerry and Lavrov were talking "on the instructions of the Russian and U.S. presidents" after Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama spoke by telephone Wednesday about the crises in Syria and Ukraine.
Multi-party talks on Syria due to start January 25 in Geneva have been thrown into doubt by a diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia, a majority Sunni Muslim state, and mainly Shi'ite Iran after Riyadh executed a Saudi Shi'ite cleric, sparking a mob attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran.