Mediator seeks new round of Syria talks

UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi has suggested February 10 as the return date for continuing the peace talks between Syria’s warring sides.

Mr Brahimi told reporters in Geneva that the opposition has accepted the date but the government wants to discuss the matter in Damascus before agreeing to it.

At the end of the first face-to-face meetings between Syria’s two sides, Mr Brahimi said he sees some positive steps and common ground but the gaps between the sides “remain wide.”

He called the week of meetings “a modest beginning, but it is a modest beginning on which we can build”.

The eight consecutive days of intense and bitter negotiations in Switzerland have produced no tangible results.

“Progress is very slow indeed, but the sides have engaged in an acceptable manner. This is a modest beginning on which we can build,” Mr Brahimi told reporters.

“The gaps between the sides remain wide; there is no use pretending otherwise. Nevertheless, during our discussions, I observed a little bit of common ground - perhaps more than the two sides realise or recognise,” he said. “Things have gone so far down that they are not going to get out of the ditch overnight.”

Negotiations have been strained over issues such as the opposition’s demand for - and the government’s resistance to – a transfer of power in Syria. The talks have so far failed to achieve any concrete results, including the passage of humanitarian aid convoys to besieged parts of the central city of Homs.

The fact that the negotiations – aimed at ending the three-year civil war that has killed more than 130,000 people – continued for the entire week was seen by many as an encouraging start. But the two sides continue to blame each other for the violence in Syria and remain deeply divided over how to end the war and if Syria’s future government should include President Bashar Assad.

On Thursday, Syrian negotiators observed a minute of silence to honour the tens of thousands of people who have died – a rare moment of unity in talks otherwise marked by divisions and bitterness. Syrian activists say around 1,900 people were killed in clashes at home during the week of talks alone.

The opposition is demanding a transitional governing body with full executive powers and wants Mr Assad to step down. The government delegation says that’s a non-starter and has insisted that the talks focus first on ending the violence.