UN bids to bring Syria warring sides together

MONTREUX, Switzerland, Jan 23 (AFP): UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi meets Syria's warring sides behind closed doors Thursday to gauge if they are willing to sit down face-to-face after the first day of a peace conference ended in bitter exchanges.

Brahimi will hold separate meetings with delegations from President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the opposition before full talks resume in Geneva on Friday.

The UN-sponsored conference -- the biggest diplomatic effort yet to resolve Syria's devastating civil war -- opened in the Swiss town of Montreux on Wednesday with heated disagreements among the two sides and world powers.

But neither side walked out and Brahimi said he would talk with both parties on Thursday to see "how best we can move forward".

"Do we go straight into one room and start discussing or do we talk a little bit more separately?... I don't know yet," Brahimi said.

Officials have said the talks could last between seven to 10 days and possibly resume after a break.

Expectations are very low for a breakthrough at the conference, but diplomats believe that simply bringing the two sides together for the first time is a mark of some progress and could be an important first step.

With no one appearing ready for serious concessions, mediators will be looking for short-term deals to keep the process moving forward, including on localised ceasefires, freer humanitarian access and prisoner exchanges.

Brahimi said he "had indications" from both sides that they were willing to discuss these issues.

Hadi Al-Bahra, a member of the opposition National Coalition's delegation, said they would be meeting with Brahimi in Geneva to work out the details of Friday's talks.

Bahra told AFP the opposition was feeling confident after the regime adopted an aggressive tone for the start of the conference.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that elections would be the best way of ending the civil war in Syria and warned the West it could not impose a political solution on Tehran's neighbour and ally.

Speaking as fledgling Syrian peace talks entered a second day on the other side of Switzerland, Rouhani told the World Economic Forum that the Syrian people should be allowed to decide their own destiny.

"The best solution is to organise free and fair elections inside Syria," Rouhani told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"No outside party or power should decide for the Syrian people and Syria as a country."

Describing a conflict that has been raging for nearly three years as a "major catastrophe", Rouhani said Iran was deeply concerned by the influx of foreign fighters he described as "terrorists" into Syria.

"Millions of innocent people have been killed, maimed or made homeless - it is a miserable situation and very sad," Rouhani said.