Pretoria - The first face-to-face meeting between the Syrian government and the opposition will today enter the second day in Geneva.
On Sunday, the talks ended after barely half an hour as the two sides faced each other silently as a UN mediator laid the groundwork for talks intended to lead Syria out of civil war.
The meeting between the two sides was their first since the start of the conflict.
Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister said President Bashar al-Assad had given the delegation instructions to "contribute to the success of the meeting and to build the future of Syria in a way that will satisfy the Syrian people".
However, the Damascus delegation denied it had accepted the premise of a transitional leadership, while the opposition said it would accept nothing less.
Well over 100 000 people have been killed and nearly nine million others driven from their homes since the conflict erupted in March 2011 between the government and various groups seeking the ouster of Assad.
More than 9.3 million people within the country need humanitarian aid, the UN says, with over 2.5 million of them living in areas where access is seriously constrained or non-existent.
The goal of the meeting is to achieve a political solution to the three-year-long conflict through a comprehensive agreement between the two sides for the full implementation of the Geneva Communiqué, adopted after the first international meeting on the issue on 30 June 2012, and since endorsed by the UN Security Council.
The communiqué lays out key steps in a process to end the violence.
Among others, it calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition. – SAnews.gov.za
