The BBC yesterday provided an overview of today’s Geneva 2 opening session – being held in Montreux, Switzerland, with the aim of dampening the violence in Syria’s almost three-year war – describing “extraordinarily ill-tempered scenes and some very direct language.”

At a fractious evening news conference, during which there were repeated calls for calm, Mr Ban spoke of the suffering in Syria, saying: “Enough is enough. The time has come to negotiate.” He said that “the really hard work begins on Friday”, adding: “We have a difficult road ahead, but it can be done and it must be done.” Mr Ban dwelt on the Geneva communique, which calls for a transitional government in Syria, saying he was disappointed with the attitudes of both the Syrian government and its ally, Iran.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi emphasized to journalists at the conference that Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad would refuse to cede power, opposite calls by the U.S. for Assad to do exactly that.

“The right to run a country does not come from bombs and missiles,” he [John Kerry] told the participants in the Swiss town of Montreux. “The stubborn clinging to power of one man,” Kerry said, is the only thing preventing the Geneva communique from creating peace.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem lashed out at among others Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, rejecting Kerry’s call for Assad to step down and openly dismissing Ban’s entreaties to leave the podium once his 10-minute speaking time had elapsed. The United States almost immediately condemned Muallem for “inflammatory rhetoric.” Meanwhile observers are expressing deepening concerns over the degree to which the U.S. has positioned itself to secure Assad’s exit. Washington’s interpretation of the previous Geneva I understanding has the deal calling for Assad’s removal, but the interpretation is rejected by Damascus and Moscow. Meanwhile Marwan Kabalan, a former dean of the faculty of international relations at the University of Kalamoon in Damascus, told RFE/RL that the Assad regime believes it has “succeeded in changing the whole focus of the international community from democratic transition in the country into fighting terrorism.” The assessment comes weeks after Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, outlined how the Obama administration has begun acting as if it viewed Assad as a partner in stemming extremists in the Syrian opposition.

[Photo: U.S. Department of State / Flickr]