International
The first face-to-face meeting between Syria's government and the opposition hoping to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad started and ended after barely a half-hour Saturday morning, with the two sides facing each other silently as a U.N. mediator split the distance between them and laid groundwork for talks intended to lead Syria out of civil war.
After tense days spent avoiding each other and meeting separately with the mediator, Assad's handpicked delegation and representatives of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) gathered briefly at a single U-shaped table, then emerged and went separate ways, using different doors to avert contact.
Only the mediator, U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, spoke during a session that Al Jazeera's correspondent called "calm."
"It was not easy for us to sit with the delegation that represents the killers in Damascus, but we did it for the sake of the Syrian people and for the sake of the Syrian children," said Anas al-Abdeh, who was among the coalition's representatives, according to The Associated Press.
The two sides were distant going into the meeting, with the Damascus delegation denying it had accepted the premise of a transitional leadership, and the opposition saying it would accept nothing less than Assad's departure. Diplomats have said even getting them to the same table can be considered an accomplishment three years into the uprising that has killed 130,000 people.
"Today we shall start with modest ideas, and we will build on them to achieve something, and we move gradually to bigger and bigger issues," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad said going into the meeting.
Delegates reconvened at around 4 p.m. (10 a.m. EST), a U.N. spokeswoman said, and discussed a possible deal on a short cease-fire to allow humanitarian aid into besieged rebel-held areas in Homs.
"We will focus over the next two days on humanitarian conditions and letting in food to the besieged areas," opposition delegation spokesman Louay Safi told reporters.
"We will also discuss the release of the prisoners of conscience. There are huge numbers of them. We will start first with women and children."
Brahimi said "we haven't achieved much" after the close of Saturday’s sessions.
"The situation is very difficult and very, very complicated, and we are moving not in steps, but half-steps," Brahimi said after a total of three hours acting as a buffer between the two sides.
First on the agenda was a cease-fire in the city of Homs. Syria's third-largest city, Homs became a major center of resistance and reprisal early on in the uprising. Neighborhoods in the old city have been ravaged following repeated government assaults to reclaim control from rebels. The city had a pre-war population of 1 million, but most residents have since fled.
Asked about accusations that the coalition made up mostly of exiles lacks influence with fighters on the ground, al-Abdeh said fighters in Homs — where only a few parts of the Old City remain in rebel hands — had agreed to abide by any agreements reached in Geneva.
Syria's civil war started in 2011 with largely peaceful protests against Assad, who unleashed the military against demonstrators. A quarter of the country's population has been displaced, taking refuge from the fighting in camps across the borders or within Syria. Meanwhile, a homegrown rebellion has transformed into a regional proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, with foreign fighters flooding in on both sides.
Russia and the United States have taken opposite sides in the war, with Russia selling Assad military hardware and using its influence on the U.N. Security Council to protect the Syrian leader. The United States has hesitated to send weapons, fearing they will fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda inspired militants who dominate some factions of the rebellion.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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