<p>John Kerry views his first trip as US secretary of state as a listening tour, but the leaders he meets will want to hear whether he has any new ideas on Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Kerry left Washington on Sunday for London, the first stop on a nine-nation, 11-day trip that will also take him to Berlin, Paris, Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha before he returns home on March 6.<br /><br />It is an introductory trip for a man who needs little introduction abroad after spending 28 years in the US Senate, all of them as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the last four as its chairman.<br /><br />After talks with allies in London, Berlin and Paris, Kerry travels to Rome to meet members of the Syrian opposition as well as a wider group of nations seeking to support them in their quest to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.<br /><br />While the Syrian opposition is willing to negotiate a peace deal to end the country’s civil war, members this week agreed that Assad cannot be a party to any settlement.</p>
<p>John Kerry views his first trip as US secretary of state as a listening tour, but the leaders he meets will want to hear whether he has any new ideas on Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Kerry left Washington on Sunday for London, the first stop on a nine-nation, 11-day trip that will also take him to Berlin, Paris, Rome, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha before he returns home on March 6.<br /><br />It is an introductory trip for a man who needs little introduction abroad after spending 28 years in the US Senate, all of them as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the last four as its chairman.<br /><br />After talks with allies in London, Berlin and Paris, Kerry travels to Rome to meet members of the Syrian opposition as well as a wider group of nations seeking to support them in their quest to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.<br /><br />While the Syrian opposition is willing to negotiate a peace deal to end the country’s civil war, members this week agreed that Assad cannot be a party to any settlement.</p>