International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi apologised to the Syrian people on Saturday for the lack of progress at peace talks in Geneva after their second round ended with little more than an agreement to meet again.
The Algerian-born diplomat said the agreement to evacuate people from the besieged city of Homs had raised hopes that had not been satisfied at the Geneva talks, involving opposition groups and representatives of President Bashar al-Assad.
"I am very, very sorry and I apologise to the Syrian people that their hopes, which were very, very high here, that something will happen here," Brahimi told journalists after the talks.
"I think that the little that has been achieved in Homs gave them even more hope that maybe this is the beginning of coming out of this horrible crisis they are in."
Saturday's last session of the second round of the talks was "as laborious as all the meetings we have had, but we agreed on an agenda for the next round when it does take place", Brahimi added.
He said both sides would need to reflect on their responsibilities before round three, and that the government in particular had to accept that the main objective of talks was transition.
ICRC:
Syria's government and opposition still do not honor basic tenets of international humanitarian law despite the evacuation of besieged Syrians from the Old City of Homs, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Saturday.
ICRC President Peter Maurer cited the conditions under which the evacuation took place in voicing his concern.
Negotiations by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the ICRC over the past year had not led to "meaningful access or a firm commitment to respect the basic principles of international humanitarian law. This pattern has again played out in Homs over the last week," Maurer said in a statement.
On the field:
Syrian troops pressed an offensive near Lebanon on Saturday, heavily bombarding a rebel-held town and forcing many residents to flee to safety across the border, activists said.
The violence came as an activist group said the death toll in the three-year Syrian conflict has reached 140,000. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the figure includes civilians, rebels, members of the military, pro-government militiamen and foreign fighters.
The group based its count on information from a network of informants on the ground.
The group said violence had escalated of late, with more than 3,400 people killed so far this month even as the government and opposition hold peace talks in Geneva. Since Jan. 22 when talks began, 5,792 people have been killed.
The U.N.'s human rights office said in January it had stopped updating its own tally of the Syrian dead because it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July.
AP/REUTERS
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