Geneva II talks resume over Syria

GENEVA - The second round of the so-called Geneva II conference resumed on Monday morning, some ten days after the first round concluded with no concrete results.

The new round began with a meeting between UN-Arab League joint envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and the delegation of the Syrian opposition, which was to be followed by a meeting between Brahimi and the delegation of the Syrian government, according to UN sources.

The meetings were set at Palais des Nations, where the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) is located.

Last week, UNOG spokeswoman Corinne Momal-Vanian said the second round was expected to last a "whole week". The Syrian government said that in the new talks it would demand discussions on items of the 2012 Geneva I communique and on putting an end to terrorism in the war-torn country.

During the first round of talks, the delegations both of the Syrian government and of the oppositional Syrian National Coalition (SNC) stuck to their demands.

The opposition demanded from the very beginning the establishment of a transitional government with full executives and without the presence of President Bashar al-Assad.

However, the government team took stopping terrorism as top priority and insisted that it is not going to hand over power to the coalition - only to negotiate a political solution -- and that that al-Assad's departure is a red line.