Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
, with the regime insisting his ouster was a "red line" while the opposition vowed to see him go - dead or alive.
The U.N.-brokered indirect negotiations are due to start on March 14 in Geneva, the latest international push to try to end Syria’s five-year conflict, which has killed more than 270,000 people and forced millions from their homes.
Government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari arrived on March 13 in Geneva, where delegates from the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) are already preparing.
Analysts have said much has changed since the last round collapsed in February as fighting raged, but that the huge regime-opposition divide will complicate a settlement.
A fragile February 27 truce brokered by the United States and Russia has largely held despite each side accusing the other of violations, a development U.S. Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
said was "very significant."
But key obstacles remain, including the fate of Assad, the holding of elections within 18 months and the shape of any new government.
"We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the presidency... Bashir al-Assad is a red line," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said in Damascus on March 12.
"If they continue with this approach, there’s no reason for them to come to Geneva."
The HNC has repeatedly called for Assad’s departure as a prerequisite for any deal.
"We believe that the transitional period should start with the fall, or death, of Bashir al-Assad," chief opposition negotiator Mohammad Alloush told AFP in a joint interview in Geneva.
"It cannot start with the presence of the regime, or the head of this regime still in power."
U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura has said the Geneva meetings, opening on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the start of the conflict in March 2011, would not last more than 10 days.