The biggest push yet to end Syria's bloodshed has been marked by fiery exchanges as the warring sides and global powers clashed over President Bashar al-Assad's fate at a UN peace conference in Switzerland.
After a day of formal speeches set to be followed this week by talks involving the two sides, UN leader Ban Ki-moon urged Syria's regime and opposition to finally work together at the table.
"The world wants an urgent end to the conflict," Ban said on Wednesday in a closing press conference at the talks in the Swiss town of Montreux.
"Enough is enough, the time has to come to negotiate."
But official statements made by the delegations gave no hint of compromise, as the two sides met on the shores of Lake Geneva for the first time since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
Branding the opposition "traitors" and foreign agents, Syrian officials insisted Assad will not give up power, while the opposition said he must step down and face trial.
"Assad will not go," Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said on the sidelines of the conference.
In his speech, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem surprised observers with a vehement attack on the opposition that went on long beyond the allotted time of less than 10 minutes, forcing Ban to repeatedly ask him to wrap it up.
"They (the opposition) claim to represent the Syrian people. If you want to speak in the name of the Syrian people, you should not be traitors to the Syrian people, agents in the pay of enemies of the Syrian people," Muallem said.
Ahmad Jarba, the head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, called on the regime to "immediately" sign a deal reached at the last peace conference in Geneva in 2012 setting out "the transfer of powers from Assad, including for the army and security, to a transition government."
Jarba said that would be "the preamble to Bashar al-Assad's resignation and his trial alongside all the criminals of his regime".
Leading a series of sharp US accusations against the Syrian regime, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted Assad cannot be part of any transitional government.
"There is no way, not possible in the imagination, that the man who has led the brutal response to his own people could regain legitimacy to govern," Kerry said.
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