(28 Jan 2014) Tense negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition broke off earlier than planned on Tuesday amid demands that President Bashar Assad put forward another proposal for the future of the country.
The fifth day of talks at the United Nations office in Geneva focused on the transfer of power and helping besieged parts of the Syrian city of Homs.
But there has been little progress toward resolving a key issue of whether Assad should step aside and transfer power to a transitional government.
UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi opened the morning session reviewing the principles of the Geneva Communique of June 2012, a broad but ambiguous proposal endorsed by Western powers and Russia to provide a basis for negotiations.
Assad's role in any transitional government was a red line during those negotiations and left vague.
The United States and Russia disagreed about Assad's role, but they signed the communique.
By mid-afternoon, Murhaf Joueijati, a member of the opposition Syrian National Coalition's negotiating team, told reporters the Geneva talks were breaking off for the day to give time for the government to make its proposal about the future of the country within the context of the 2012 accord.
The government had presented a working paper on Syria's future on Monday, which the opposition rejected.
"We are giving here the chance to the regime delegation to gather their thoughts, and hopefully at the request of Mr Lakhdar Brahimi and our request, to come out with their own vision for a future Syria, within the context of the Geneva communique," Joueijati told reporters, while announcing the break in talks.
"Thus far, they are very, very staunchly resisting such a thing. They do not want to talk."
He also accused the government of holding up the delivery of aid to Homs.
A tentative agreement was reached in Geneva last weekend for the evacuation of women and children trapped in the rebel-held city before aid convoys go in.
One complication in doing that and evacuating the city's residents is that the opposition delegation does not control armed groups inside Syria, including al-Qaida-backed militants, who do not feel bound by agreements reached in Geneva.
The opposition also claim the regime is making the evacuation difficult.
SNC member Rima Fleihan told reporters following the break in talks that the regime "has refused to lift the siege on Homs and has asked to search the women and children who leave the city."
"The regime has said that everyone who is in the Jesuit church in Homs are terrorists. The regime has not complied and reacted negatively and tried to turn the session today as a platform to deliver statements as they did yesterday," Fleihan added.
Meanwhile the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad defended the regime's position on Homs.
"We are still waiting for assurances that these (aid) convoys will not go to armed groups and terrorist groups inside the city, we want them to go to civilians and to the children who are there."
He also stated that the United States should be held responsible for any failure of the Geneva conference.
"Yesterday openly the United States issued a decision for the resumption of armed assistance to the terrorist groups and I said that this is of course not the best prize for the conference in Geneva, in fact it contradicts with the spirit of Geneva and this is a recipe for failure for the Geneva conference," al-Mikdad told reporters.
SNC negotiators also said there has been no progress on Homs because of concerns the people who leave it would not have sufficient protection.
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