The top diplomats for Russia and the U.S. said Monday Syria's government and the opposition have agreed to consider opening humanitarian access in the run-up to a peace conference that would bring the sides together for the first time.
Speaking in the midst of a two-day series of meetings in Paris, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry also said they were pressing for a cease-fire and prisoner exchange between the warring sides.
Russia's Lavrov questioned whether the Western-backed opposition which has not yet agreed to attend peace talks and has limited influence inside Syria was willing or able to carry out agreements in the face of intense infighting that has pitted al-Qaeda-linked militants against more moderate factions. Nearly 700 rebel fighters have died in recent days.
Kerry acknowledged that "terrorists greatly complicated this equation," but warned that "If disorder is allowed to continue to grow, it is extremists who will benefit, and all the people who want peace and stability who will lose."
While Kerry and Lavrov agreed on several points, their nations remained at an impasse on whether Iran, Syria's strongest ally, should attend the peace talks.
Kerry said he would welcome Iran's participation in the upcoming talks but only if Tehran signs off on earlier diplomatic agreements that any transitional government in Syria would not include Assad or his close allies.
The UN did not invite Iran to the Jan. 22 peace conference and the US has long maintained that it cannot participate if it does not agree with its guiding principles.
Lavrov, however, said Iran should attend, adding that some participants have rejected parts of the earlier agreement. He did not specify, but Assad's government, which is sending a delegation, has said the president will not surrender power and may run again in elections due later this year.
Syrian Foreign Minister
The Syrian Ambassador in Moscow, Riyad Haddad, said on Monday Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem will visit Moscow ahead of the Geneva 2 international conference.
Haddad added to the Interfax news agency that Minister Mualem will be in Moscow before the conference.
Chemical weapons-UK
Britain said on Monday it planned to give the United States specialist equipment and training to help it destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal more quickly.
Part of Syria's chemical stockpile is due to be destroyed on board a specially adapted U.S. ship under an international accord engineered by Russia in the wake of a poison gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds, including children, last August.
British Defense Minister Philip Hammond said in a written statement to parliament on Monday his country planned to gift equipment to the United States worth around 2.5 million pounds ($4.12 million) that would allow the chemicals to be processed at a higher rate.
On the field:
Syrian state media and anti-government activists say a mortar attack has killed at least 19 people in the central city of Homs.
The official SANA news agency said late on Sunday that the mortar rounds slammed into the pro-government Ghouta and Karm al-Shami neighborhoods of Homs.
It blamed "terrorists" for the attack, employing the term the government uses to describe those trying to topple President Bashar Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group also reported the mortar attack in Homs.
Syrian rebels often lob mortar rounds into pro-government neighborhoods of cities and towns, while President Bashar Assad's forces indiscriminately strike rebel-held areas with artillery, airstrikes and surface-to-surface missiles.
Syria's civil war has killed more than 120,000 since the crisis began in March 2011.
REUTERS/A