Assad’s future takes center stage at peace talks

Talks in Switzerland aimed at carving a path out of Syria's civil war got off to a rocky start Wednesday as a bitter clash over President Bashar al-Assad's future threatened to collapse the negotiations.

Fighting raged in Syria even as diplomats sparred against a pristine Alpine backdrop in Montreux, with government forces and opposition fighters clashing across a wide area from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to Daraa in the south, according to activists and state media.

Just hours into the first day of talks, which are the beginning of a process designed to map out a transitional government and ultimately a democratic election, the government and opposition seemed impossibly far apart.

"There will be no transfer of power, and President Bashar Assad is staying," Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi told reporters.

Ahmad al-Jarba of the western-backed Syrian National Council (SNC) had wavered up to the last minute on whether to attend the peace talks, which have largely been opposed by rebel brigades in Syria. He said any discussion of Assad's continued hold on power would effectively end the talks.

A transitional government "is the only topic for us," he said.

Secretary of State John Kerry echoed the SNC’s calls. "There is no way — no way possible in the imagination — that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain the legitimacy to govern. One man and those who have supported him can no longer hold an entire nation and a region hostage."

"We really need to deal with reality," he added.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem insisted that no one except Syrians could remove Assad. He accused the West and neighboring countries of funneling money, weapons and foreign fighters to the rebellion.

"The West claims to fight terrorism publicly while they feed it secretly," he said. "Syrians here in this hall participated in all that has happened. They implemented, facilitated the bloodshed, and all at the expense of the Syrian people they claim to represent."

Complicating matters, both Assad's delegates and the SNC claimed to speak for the Syrian people.

But Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.–Arab League envoy for Syria, signaled that both sides were ready to move beyond rhetoric. 

"We have had some fairly clear indications that the parties are willing to discuss issues of access to needy people, the liberation of prisoners and local cease-fires," he told a news conference.