REPORT: Russian PM sees Syria peace talks by end of year, Brahimi...

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UN-Arab League envoy to Syria is winding up a days-long visit to Damascus with a call to both the Syrian government and the opposition to attend a planned peace conference in Geneva.

In a press conference, Lakhdar Brahimi acknowledged that the Geneva conference, which the US hopes will be held later this month, will not take place if the Syrian opposition refuses to take part.

Syrian opposition groups are split on whether to attend and the conditions for taking part.

Brahimi's plea comes just hours after officials said Israeli warplanes had attacked a shipment of Russian missiles inside a Syrian government stronghold a development that threatened to add another volatile layer to regional tensions from the Syrian civil war.

Syrian officials and state media have not commented on the reports.

For his part, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia hopes an international peace conference on Syria will be held before the end of this year, despite reported differences with the United States over opposition representation.

He appealed to both sides in Syria's civil war to compromise and criticized the opposition for demanding assurances of President Bashar al-Assad's departure as a condition for the talks.

"I hope it will be possible to hold the conference by the end of this year but we understand that the influence of all sides taking part is limited," Medvedev told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.

Russia sees the coalition as just one part of the opposition and has suggested that several delegations, including Damascus-based figures tolerated by the government, could represent Assad's enemies.

Assad suggested last month that he could seek re-election in a vote scheduled for next year.

Medvedev said Assad might be worried by the fates suffered by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak - who was overthrown and put on trial - and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who met a grisly death after being ousted from power.

On the field:

Syrian government forces have captured a northern town located near a site linked to the country's chemical weapons program after days of heavy fighting, a monitoring group said.

The town, Safira, is also located on a strategic road that could be used to relieve government-controlled areas of Aleppo, a major nearby city. It had been controlled by rebels including some from units linked to al Qaeda.

The Observatory, which has a network of sources across Syria, did not give further details and there was no immediate comment on the reports in Syrian state media.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which has teams in Syria to eliminate the country's chemical weapons, has said its teams were unable to reach two sites for inspection because they were too dangerous.

The OPCW has not said which locations it had been unable to inspect, but a source briefed on their operations said one was at Safira, which is southeast of Aleppo.

The chemical weapons site itself has been under government control but emptied of equipment because of fighting nearby, the OPCW said.

AP/REUTERS

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