Syria peace talks set to fail

Russia and the United States pledged their help in reviving stalled Syrian peace negotiations, United Nations' mediator Lakhdar Brahimi reported Thursday, but their deliberations did nothing to dispel uncertainty about how the process will proceed or produce any initiative to ease the plight of war-weary Syrians.

Brahimi's consultations with Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov of Russia and Undersecretary of State for political affairs Wendy Sherman came as intense fighting in Syria caused a spike in casualties and a new flood of refugees.

And while the two powers that set the peace process in motion have a common purpose in moving it forward, Russia and the United States have squared off in the UN Security Council over a resolution intended to open access for relief agencies to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians worn down by three years of conflict.

Brahimi was due to meet the Syrian factions again Friday, but as the second round of talks ground toward a close the only progress he could report was that the warring parties were a little more used to the presence of the other side.

"Until now, we are not making much progress in the process," Brahimi said, acknowledging that "failure is always staring at us in the face."

That meeting came after Syria's warring sides spent days in Geneva trading blame for the violence ravaging their country and endlessly restating their positions.

Brahimi stressed though that "as far as the United Nations is concerned, we will certainly not leave one stone unturned if there is a possibility to move forward."

The talks that began on January 22 were initiated by Washington, which backs the opposition, and Moscow, a key ally of the Syrian government.

Asked whether there had been any change in the attitudes of the two sides since then, Brahimi said the delegations "are a little bit more familiar with the presence of the other side."

"I don't think any friendships have developed yet," he added. "We're still looking for the point where we can see the light at the end of the tunnel."

In the meantime, a spike in fighting between the Syrian government and opposition forces has sent the country's death toll soaring.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Thursday reported that at least 51 people were killed a day earlier in Aleppo alone - mostly civilians in air raids targeting opposition-controlled areas. Dozens more were killed in the south.

The Observatory has reported an average of 236 people killed daily since the so-called Geneva 2 peace talks began in late January, bringing regime and opposition representatives to the negotiating table but producing no concrete results.

In Switzerland, the opposition National Coalition laid out a transition plan, including evicting foreign fighters and a process towards elections, the AFP news agency reported.

But the government refused to discuss it, saying the first item on the agenda was the battle against rebel "terrorism".

Meanwhile, Russia has presented draft UN Security Council resolutions on humanitarian aid access and the fight against "terrorism" in Syria, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

Moscow's calls for a resolution are in tune with rhetoric from Damascus, which uses the term to describe all those fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

"Terrorism is certainly no less acute a problem [than the humanitarian crisis]," Lavrov told a news conference after talks with his Egyptian counterpart.

Moscow earlier this week confirmed it would reject a Western-Arab draft resolution on humanitarian aid access in Syria in its existing form, saying it was biased against the government of Assad.

The latest daily death tolls in Syria have been the highest since the civil war began nearly three years ago, while hundreds of thousands more people have been displaced by the violence.