As the tense standoff continues on the Crimean Peninsula, the focus of efforts to end the crisis peacefully shifts to Paris.
If all goes as diplomats hope, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet there later today. As NPR's Michele Kelemen said on Morning Edition, the stage is set for a very tense meeting.. .
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Kerry, who today is meeting with other diplomats from the nations that make up the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, is expected to hold separate talks with Lavrov about the situation in Ukraine.
The U.S. and other Western nations hope Russia will take what's being called a diplomatic "off-ramp" — perhaps accepting the presence of international monitors in Crimea who would protect the interests of the region's ethnic Russian majority.. .