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Summary Peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi held meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received on Sunday peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is pressing both sides in Syrias conflict for a truce during a Muslim holiday this week, state television said.UN and Arab League envoy Brahimi met Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and opposition leaders tolerated by the Assads regime on Saturday to push for the truce over the four-day Eid al-Adha holiday, beginning on October 26.The foreign ministry said Muallem discussed with him a halt to the violence... in order to prepare for a global Syrian dialogue, free of any foreign intervention.Such a dialogue is the only way to emerge from the crisis, it said.Their talks were clouded by tensions in neighbouring Lebanon, where opposition leaders and the prime minister linked to the Syrian regime a deadly bombing that killed a top security official.Also, Muallem complained to Brahimi about regional countries Syria accuses of hosting, arming and training rebels, saying their action was undermining the UN-Arab League envoys mission.Syria has repeatedly blamed its neighbour Turkey as well as energy-rich Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting the armed insurgency.On the ground at least 108 people were killed in violence in Syria on Saturday, 42 of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, as fighting raged on northern battlefields and around Damascus.
