Syria foes clash over Assad, atrocities at first meeting

[Mosby]

Source: Yahoo via Reuters

MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Syria's government and opposition, meeting for the first time, vented their mutual hostility on Wednesday but a U.N. mediator said the enemies may be ready to discuss prisoner swaps, local ceasefires and humanitarian aid.

Russia said the rival sides had promised to start direct talks on Friday despite fears that a standoff over President Bashar al-Assad's fate would halt the push for a political solution to Syria's civil war, which has killed over 130,000 and made millions homeless.

Even if the sides are willing to discuss limited confidence-building measures, expectations for the peace process remain low, with Islamist rebels and Assad ally Iran absent and a solution to the three-year war still far off.

Western officials were taken aback by the combative tone of Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem at the one-day a U.N. peace conference in Switzerland, fearing follow-up negotiations would never get off the ground due to the acrimony.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/syria-peace-conference-opens-divided-over-assad-091310737.html

[freshwest]

1. 130,000 dead and millions homeless won't be forgotten. And the basic reasons for the civil war are

still in place, apparently. It's going to be an incredibly hard thing for the various sides to make peace.

Partitioning or the total overthrow of government seemed to be worth the cost all of these lives to some. Can't forget the atrocities commited and add those to the prior injustices by Assad's father, and they got a tevolt.

We aren't being told what they will agree to, so this will be a long, ugly process. Can't give up, though, and the destruction of the CW will give them less to kill each other with; so they are going to have to deal.

The civilians took the brunt of this.