Women and children to be allowed to leave Homs

Women and children are to be allowed to leave the besieged insurgent-held city of Homs "immediately", UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said yesterday, adding he hoped a UN-Red Cross convoy waiting on its outskirts would be able to deliver food and medicine today.

Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mikdad said armed groups have prevented civilians from an estimated 800 families from departing. The government also demanded aid for civilians be allowed into insurgent-held areas.

The opposition expatriate National Coalition has pledged to gather names of kidnapped and detained persons from rebel groups it controls but the coalition has little purchase over other insurgent factions, including those linked to al-Qaeda, which hold the majority of captives.

Yesterday's fourth day of peace talks in Geneva consisted of a joint session in the morning and separate meetings between the delegations and Mr Brahimi in the afternoon. "The situation is very difficult and very, very complicated," Mr Brahimi said.

Atmosphere acrimonious

Delegates are not talking to each other. They enter and leave the room through separate doors.

“They face one another and they talk to each other through me,” said Mr Brahimi, expressing hope that when the talks progressed, direct dialogue would result.

The atmosphere remains acrimonious. President Bashar al-Assad's political adviser, Bouthaina Shaaban, said the coalition is not representative and called for other opposition organisations to be brought into the negotiations . The main domestic groups refused to sit on a delegation led by the coalition, which has no support in Syria itself.

Coalition member Anas Abdeh said: "It was not easy for us to sit down with the delegation that represents the killers in Damascus, but we did it for the sake of the Syria people and . . . of Syrian children."

Main political issue

Coalition spokesman Louay Safi described the talks as “consultations – not negotiations . . . Homs is a trial balloon . . . If the regime does not open humanitarian corridors for people who are starving to death, this means the regime wants a military solution and not a political solution.”

There is no common ground on the main political issue: the formation of a transitional authority to rule until democratic elections can be held. The government insists priority should be given to fighting "terrorism" while the opposition demands Dr Assad must stand down ahead of the creation of a transitional body.

Syrian information minister Omran al-Zoubi said there was “an enormous gap” between the sides on this issue. The government has “major reservations regarding” a transitional government, fearing Syria could have the same fate as Iraq after an interim government was set up there by the US in 2003.

Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar al-Jafaari said it was “too early” to speak of Dr Assad stepping aside but said the sides should agree to “talk about everything without selectivity . . . and no preconditions and no hidden agendas”.