The international mediator seeking peace in Syria warned of "hell" if no deal is struck to end 21 months of bloodshed, but his talks in Russia capping a week of intense diplomacy brought no sign of a breakthrough, according to Reuters.
UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both said there was still a chance for a negotiated solution to the conflict, which has killed more than 44,000 people and set world powers against one another.
But Lavrov firmly repeated Russia's stance that President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a political solution, saying that such demands were "wrong" and that the opposition's refusal to talk to the government was a "dead end".
"If the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then all of us must work ceaselessly for a political process," Brahimi said. "It is difficult, it is very complicated but there is no other choice."
"The core of that political process … is and must be the Geneva agreement," said Brahimi, who took over as the UN-Arab League envoy after Kofi Annan quit in frustration at divisions among world powers, chiefly the United States and Russia, and the failure of the Geneva accord to bring a resolution closer.
"There may be one or two little adjustments to make here and there, but it is a reasonable basis for a political process that will help the Syrian people," he said, without elaborating.
Brahimi, who met Assad and others on a five-day trip to Syria this week, is to meet senior U.S. and Russian diplomats together in the coming weeks, after two such meetings this month that produced no signs of a breakthrough.
