BEIRUT: A key international conference aimed at ending Syria’s civil war will be held in Geneva in late November, according to an announcement by the Arab League chief on Sunday that followed weeks of diplomacy to finalise the meeting.

League chief Nabil Elaraby made the announcement at a news conference at the pan-Arab organisation’s headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, after talks with the Arab League-UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi.

The proposed conference on Nov 23 and 24, will attempt to get Syria’s rival sides to agree on a transitional government in that country based on a plan adopted in Geneva in June 2012.

Syria’s conflict, now into its third year, has left over 100,000 dead. It has devastated the economy and the country’s delicate social fabric. It has caused 5 million Syrians to flee their homes to other places within the country, and driven another 2 million abroad. A seasoned Algerian diplomat and an international trouble-shooter, Brahimi, said he planned to visit Qatar and Turkey on Monday as part of his preparations for the Geneva conference. Elaraby said “many difficulties” face the proposed Geneva conference. He did not elaborate.

Syria’s fractured and squabbling opposition movement immediately criticised the plan, saying they were not consulted. They said they could not accept any negotiations that allowed for the Syrian President Bashar Assad to remain as head of state in any transitional period.

The talks have been put off repeatedly in the past, in part because of fundamental disagreements over Assad’s fate.

The western-backed Syrian National Coalition, the main alliance of political opposition groups, has said in the past that it will only negotiate if it is agreed from the start that Assad will leave power at the end of a transition period. Many rebel fighters inside Syria flatly reject negotiating with Assad’s regime.

The regime has rejected such a demand, saying Assad will stay at least until the end of his term in mid-2014, and he will decide then whether to seek re-election. The regime has said it refuses to negotiate with the armed opposition.

“This is a conspiracy against the Syrian people,” said Bassam al-Dada, an official with the rebel Free Syrian Army. “The most important request of the Syrian people — the distancing of Bashar (Assad) from the transitional period — was ignored,” he said.

He said the western-backed SNC would meet Nov 1 to discuss the matter further. Many rebels think the government will exploit peace talks, but has no intention of making concessions.

Islam Alloush, a spokesman for one rebel group, Liwaa al-Islam, said that holding a conference that involved the Syrian regime could make the conflict worse, by emboldening government forces to act more harshly on the ground.

“This is very, very sensitive. We have to be extremely careful,” Alloush said. “It could produce more negative results,” he said.—AP