The Syrian regime has said women and children can leave besieged areas of the city of Homs in the center of the country.

The announcement came after negotiators from the warring sides discussed humanitarian gestures on a second day of face-to-face talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Homs, occupying a strategic location, has been a key battleground. President Bashar al-Assad's forces retook many of the surrounding areas last year, leaving opposition forces under siege in the city center, along with thousands of civilians. Hundreds of families in the Old City have lived under the siege for nearly 18 months now, with frequent shelling and very limited supplies.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy, said on Sunday he understood that the women and children would be free to leave Homs immediately.

The Syrian regime authorities also agreed to allow humanitarian aid convoys in - as soon as Monday.

Faisal Maqdad, the Syrian deputy foreign minister, said after Sunday's meetings that the regime would let women and children leave the city center if opposition forces gave them safe passage.

In Homs, however, opposition activists said opposition forces demanded a complete end to the blockade and opposed a limited ceasefire.

Brahimi, who presided on Saturday over the first direct meeting between the two delegations, met both together again on Sunday morning, before holding discussions with each side separately in the afternoon.

He said opposition delegates, who have asked for the release of nearly 50,000 detainees, had agreed to a regime request to try to provide a list of those held by armed opposition groups - though many of these groups do not recognize the negotiators' authority.

Brahimi hopes to begin discussion of a UN plan for a transitional regime at another joint session on Monday.

There was little sign of a softening of positions on the core issue - whether or not Assad should quit now, as the opposition and their Western and Arab backers say was agreed by a UN conference at Geneva 18 months ago.

An adviser to Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban, demanded that the UN text calling for a political transition should be amended.

The regime was ready to discuss the Geneva Communique, she said.

Speaking for the opposition National Coalition, Louay Safi said Monday's session with Brahimi would show if the regime was willing to negotiate: "Tomorrow we start talking about transition from dictatorship to democracy. The regime is ... stalling."

And Omran Zoabi, the Syrian information minister, said there was no chance of Assad surrendering power.

'Fierce fighting'

Meanwhile, on the ground, Syrian opposition forces and regime troops clashed in some districts of Damascus, a Britain-based monitoring group said.
"Fierce fighting raged between opposition forces and troops in Jobar [in eastern Damascus] and the Port Said area of Qadam [in the south]," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Man walk through damaged buildings in the besieged area of Homs January 25, 2014

Al-Jazeera