GENEVA-
Syria’s government and opposition on Tuesday sat down for their first face-to-face talks this month, on the second day of a new round of rocky peace negotiations.
The talks in Geneva were being chaired by UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations said.
“The Joint Special Representative is meeting this morning with the two delegations simultaneously. The meeting started at 10:00 am (0900 GMT),” UN spokeswoman Corinne Momal-Vanian said in an email to reporters.
The second round of the so-called Geneva II talks got off to a shaky start Monday, with Brahimi shuttling between the delegations in the hope that keeping them apart at first might put them in a more conciliatory state of mind.
An eight-day session last month achieved little beyond getting the foes into the same room for the first time since Syria’s civil war erupted in March 2011.
There has been little sign that the current round, expected to last until Friday, will make progress towards ending the conflict.
More than 136,000 people have died and millions have been forced from their homes since the war broke out after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on Arab Spring-inspired protests.