"I met the delegations of the opposition and the government separately yesterday and again today and tomorrow we expect, we have agreed, that we will meet in the same room," Brahimi told journalists.
Pulled together by the United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
, Russia and the United States, delegations from
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
's regime and the opposition had been due to sit down early Friday at U.N. headquarters in Geneva for their first face-to-face talks.
But Brahimi was unable to convince them to sit together, after the opposition insisted the regime must be prepared to discuss Assad leaving power.
"We knew that it was going to be difficult, complicated," Brahimi said. "We never expected this to be easy -- I think the two parties understand what is at stake."
The regime has threatened to withdraw from the talks should "serious sessions" fail to take place on Saturday, but Brahimi appeared confident no one would be immediately walking away from the talks.
"Both parties are going to be here tomorrow and they will be meeting. Nobody will be leaving on Saturday and nobody will be leaving on Sunday," he said.
Brahimi said discussions so far had been "encouraging" but said talks on concrete issues had not yet begun.
"We have not discussed the core matters yet. We hope that both parties will give concessions that will be to the benefit of the process," he said.
Earlier on Friday, Syria's regime threatened to quit peace talks in Geneva.
Syrian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had told Brahimi that "should serious sessions fail to take place tomorrow, the official Syrian delegation will leave Geneva."
Muallem told Brahimi "the Syrian delegation is serious and ready to start, but the other side is not," it said.
Brahimi spent Thursday trying to convince them to be in the same room for the start of the talks -- the biggest diplomatic effort yet to stem the bloodshed in Syria's devastating civil war.
But instead he again met separately with each delegation.
"This process is shaping up, so there have been changes to previous declarations," U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told news hounds. "We are going step by step."
Brahimi met the regime delegation in the late morning and had begun meeting with the opposition National Coalition around 4:00 pm (1500 GMT).
Sources within the delegations told Agence La Belle France Presse the opposition had refused to sit in the same room unless the regime accepted the need for a transitional government without Assad.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad told news hounds the opposition was obstructing the talks.
"The problem is that these people do not want to make peace, they are coming here with pre-conditions," he told news hounds.