Syrian peace talks stuck over Assad's future

MONTREUX, Switzerland (AP):

PEACE TALKS to carve a path out of Syria's civil war got off to a rocky start Wednesday as a bitter clash over President Bashar Assad's future threatened to collapse the negotiations even before they had begun.

The dispute over Assad cast a pall over an international conference that aims to map out a transitional government and ultimately a democratic election for the country mired in fighting that has killed more than 130,000 people and displaced millions.

While diplomats sparred against a pristine Alpine backdrop, Syrian forces and opposition fighters clashed across a wide area from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to Daraa in the south, activists and state media said.

two sides at odds

Just hours into the talks in the Swiss city of Montreux, the two sides seemed impossibly far apart. Complicating matters, both Assad's delegates and the Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition claimed to speak for the Syrian people.

"We did not expect instant breakthroughs. ... No one underestimated the difficulties," United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters at the end of the daylong session. "The Syrian people are looking desperately for relief from the nightmare in which they are trapped."

A UN mediator will meet separately with both Syrian sides today to see if they can even sit together in face-to-face talks due to begin Friday.