Talks between the Syrian government and the opposition coalition opened in Geneva, Switzerland-英语听力

[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.