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From VOA Learning English, this is In the News. |
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International efforts to bring an end to the conflict in Syria got off to a bad start on Friday. |
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Talks between the Syrian government and the opposition coalition opened in Geneva, Switzerland. |
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But the two sides refused to hold direct negotiations. |
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Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem is leading the government delegation. |
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He announced he would leave if the talks do not get serious by Saturday. |
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At the same time, a leader of the opposition delegation rejected the idea of face-to-face negotiations. |
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Badr Jamous said there will be no direct talks until the government team accepts what is called the Geneva 1 communique. |
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That document is supposed to be the starting point for the talks. |
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The Geneva 1 communique calls for the establishment of a temporary government in Syria. |
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The opposition and its allies say that means Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave office. |
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The president and his allies disagree. |
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The United Nations and Arab League diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi is taking part in the talks between the government and the opposition. |
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He met with the two sides separately on Friday. |
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The diplomat had predicted that this kind of dispute might delay the talks. |
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But he expressed hope that he could get the two delegations to sit down together. |
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Late Friday, Mr. Brahimi said the talks will continue on Saturday, in his words, "in the same room." |
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Observers had predicted such difficulties. |
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On Wednesday, the Syrian foreign minister and opposition leader |
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made conflicting statements at an international conference in nearby Montreux, Switzerland. |
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David Butter is a Syria expert with London's Chatham House. |
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He sees little hope of progress during the current talks. |
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"Both Syrian sides have got very different objectives going into it. |
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And also, it's in a context where you can't really see either party |
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to the internal conflict actually having any sort of decisive advantage, |
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which would be the basis of some sort of bargaining process." |
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The distrust is making it difficult for the negotiations to move forward. |
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The UN says more than nine million Syrians urgently need aid and many of them cannot be reached because of the fighting. |
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The three-year long Syrian conflict has killed an estimated 100 thousand people. |
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For weeks, diplomats have been preparing for the talks in Switzerland. |
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Last Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited Iran to take part in the one-day meeting at Montreux. |
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But the Syrian National Coalition, threatened to boycott the talks if they included Iran. |
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The United States said the only way Iran could take part |
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was by supporting the establishment of a temporary government in Syria with full executive powers. |
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This was an idea presented in the "Geneva 1 Communique". |
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But, Iran has refused to say it supports the communique. |
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That forced Mr. Ban's spokesman to announce that Iran would not be attending the meeting in Montreux, nor the talks in Geneva. |
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And that's In the News from VOA Learning English. |
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I'm Steve Ember. |