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Winding up days-long visit to Damascus, UN envoy to Syria renews call for peace talks

Associated Press
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In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, speaks to reporters in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. Brahimi has met a senior opposition figure in Damascus as part of a diplomatic push to convince all sides in the country's crisis to attend peace talks in Geneva next month. (AP Photo/SANA) (The Associated Press)

In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, people try to extinguish a fire on the roof of a building, allegedly caused by shelling in Homs, Syria, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. President Bashar Assad's government met a key deadline in an ambitious plan to eliminate Syria's entire chemical weapons stockpile by mid-2014 and avoid international military action. (AP Photo/Shaam News Network via AP Video) (The Associated Press)

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, speaks with U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Assad told the Arab League-U.N. envoy Wednesday that foreign support for the armed opposition must end if any political solution to the country's conflict is to succeed, state-run media said. (AP Photo/SANA) (The Associated Press)

U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria is winding up a days-long visit to Damascus with a call to both the Syrian government and the opposition to attend a planned peace conference in Geneva.

But Lakhdar Brahimi acknowledged that the conference, which the U.S. hopes will be held later this month, will not take place if the Syrian opposition refuses to take part.

Syrian opposition groups are split on whether to attend and the conditions for taking part.

Brahimi's plea comes just hours after officials said Israeli warplanes had attacked a shipment of Russian missiles inside a Syrian government stronghold — a development that threatened to add another volatile layer to regional tensions from the Syrian civil war.

Syrian officials and state media have not commented on the reports.