[00:00.100]From VOA Learning English, this is In the News.
[00:10.120]International efforts to bring an end to the conflict in Syria got off to a bad start on Friday.
[00:19.620]Talks between the Syrian government and the opposition coalition opened in Geneva, Switzerland.
[00:27.660]But the two sides refused to hold direct negotiations.
[00:32.640]Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem is leading the government delegation.
[00:39.110]He announced he would leave if the talks do not get serious by Saturday.
[00:45.760]At the same time, a leader of the opposition delegation rejected the idea of face-to-face negotiations.
[00:56.300]Badr Jamous said there will be no direct talks until the government team accepts what is called the Geneva 1 communique.
[01:08.640]That document is supposed to be the starting point for the talks.
[01:14.860]The Geneva 1 communique calls for the establishment of a temporary government in Syria.
[01:23.760]The opposition and its allies say that means Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave office.
[01:33.990]The president and his allies disagree.
[01:38.590]The United Nations and Arab League diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi is taking part in the talks between the government and the opposition.
[01:49.700]He met with the two sides separately on Friday.
[01:54.550]The diplomat had predicted that this kind of dispute might delay the talks.
[02:01.970]But he expressed hope that he could get the two delegations to sit down together.
[02:09.020]Late Friday, Mr. Brahimi said the talks will continue on Saturday, in his words, "in the same room."
[02:18.780]Observers had predicted such difficulties.
[02:22.750]On Wednesday, the Syrian foreign minister and opposition leader
[02:28.290]made conflicting statements at an international conference in nearby Montreux, Switzerland.
[02:35.710]David Butter is a Syria expert with London's Chatham House.
[02:41.270]He sees little hope of progress during the current talks.
[02:45.870]"Both Syrian sides have got very different objectives going into it.
[02:50.350]And also, it's in a context where you can't really see either party
[02:54.300] to the internal conflict actually having any sort of decisive advantage,
[02:58.910]which would be the basis of some sort of bargaining process."
[03:02.180]The distrust is making it difficult for the negotiations to move forward.
[03:08.820]The UN says more than nine million Syrians urgently need aid and many of them cannot be reached because of the fighting.
[03:20.280]The three-year long Syrian conflict has killed an estimated 100 thousand people.
[03:28.700]For weeks, diplomats have been preparing for the talks in Switzerland.
[03:35.230]Last Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited Iran to take part in the one-day meeting at Montreux.
[03:46.530]But the Syrian National Coalition, threatened to boycott the talks if they included Iran.
[03:55.120]The United States said the only way Iran could take part
[04:01.360]was by supporting the establishment of a temporary government in Syria with full executive powers.
[04:09.720]This was an idea presented in the "Geneva 1 Communique".
[04:15.040]But, Iran has refused to say it supports the communique.
[04:20.970]That forced Mr. Ban's spokesman to announce that Iran would not be attending the meeting in Montreux, nor the talks in Geneva.
[04:32.360]And that's In the News from VOA Learning English.
[04:37.670]I'm Steve Ember.