UN bids to bring Syria warring sides together

UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi meets Syria's warring sides behind closed doors Thursday to gauge if they are willing to negotiate face to face after the first day of a peace conference ended in bitter exchanges. Brahimi was set to meet separately with delegations from President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition in Geneva before full talks resume on Friday. The UN-sponsored conference -- the biggest diplomatic effort yet to resolve Syria's devastating civil war -- opened in the Swiss town of Montreux on Wednesday with heated disagreements among the two sides and world powers. Brahimi was set to first meet with opposition chief Ahmad Jarba Thursday afternoon and subsequently with the head of the Syrian regime's delegation, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, the UN said. It remained unclear if he would be able to coax them to sit down at the same table for direct talks, or if their respective international backers, the United States and Russia, would need to shuttle between them. "Do we go straight into one room and start discussing or do we talk a little bit more separately?... I don't know yet," Brahimi said. Expectations are very low for a breakthrough at the conference, which officials have said could last up to 10 days, but diplomats believe that simply bringing the two sides together for the first time is a mark of some progress and could be an important first step. With no one appearing ready for serious concessions, mediators will be looking for short-term deals to keep the process moving forward, including on localised ceasefires, freer humanitarian access and prisoner exchanges. Brahimi said he "had indications" from both sides that they were willing to discuss these issues. Hadi Al-Bahra, a member of the opposition National Coalition's delegation, meanwhile told AFP the opposition felt it had benefitted from the regime's aggressive tone at the start of the conference Wednesday. "We have heard very positive feedback from inside Syria and it is the first time we've felt so much support from Syrians for the Coalition," Bahra said. In a vehement attack during his opening speech that went long beyond his alloted time, Foreign Minister Muallem accused the opposition of being "traitors" and agents of foreign governments. The regime delegation behaved "like the mafia, with a style very far from diplomacy," Bahra said. Syrian state media meanwhile slammed the Montreux conference, with the Tishreen daily charging that most of the speeches from the more than 40 nations and international bodies present had lobbed "dishonest accusations... at the Syrian government." "The imposters were unmasked. They spoke out in favour of terrorism while making speeches about justice and human rights," the Al-Thawra daily chimed in. The opposition arrived in Switzerland with a sole aim -- toppling Assad -- while the regime says any talk of removing the Syrian leader is a "red line" it will not cross. In his opening speech, opposition chief Jarba called on the regime to immediately sign an agreement reached at the last peace conference in Geneva in 2012 setting out the transfer of power to a transition government. UN leader Ban Ki-moon urged the two sides to finally work together to save lives. "The world wants an urgent end to the conflict," Ban said in his closing press conference. "Enough is enough, the time has to come to negotiate." Notably absent from the Montreux conference was crucial Assad backer Iran, after Ban reversed a last-minute invitation when the opposition said it would boycott if Tehran took part. Iran calls for Syria elections In the Swiss ski resort of Davos on Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said elections would be the best way to end Syria's civil war. "The best solution is to organise free and fair elections inside Syria," Rouhani told the World Economic Forum. "No outside party or power should decide for the Syrian people and Syria as a country." Erupting after the regime cracked down on protests inspired by the Arab Spring, Syria's civil war has claimed more than 130,000 lives and forced millions from the homes. Pitting Assad's regime, dominated by the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam, against largely Sunni Muslim rebels, the war has unsettled large parts of the Middle East. Shiite Iran and its Lebanese militia ally Hezbollah have backed Assad; the mainly Sunni Arab Gulf states have supported the opposition; and the violence has often spilled over into neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq. Sectarian clashes linked to Syria's war have killed 10 people in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli over the past six days alone, a security official said Thursday. Much of the fighting inside Syria in recent weeks has been between opposition forces themselves, as rebel groups combined to attack bases of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, an Al-Qaeda linked group. Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri late Wednesday called for a halt to the clashes, which according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have killed nearly 1,400 people since January 3. In an audio message posted on the Internet he urged "every free person in Syria seeking to overthrow Assad... to seek an end to fighting between brothers in jihad and Islam immediately."