Syrians brand world talks a failure

Syria's opposition and state media have branded an international plan for a transition a failure, as the death toll for a weekend of violence topped 140.

World powers meeting in Geneva on Saturday agreed the transition plan could include current regime members, but the West did not see any role for President Bashar al-Assad in a new unity government.

Russia and China insisted that Syrians themselves must decide how the transition takes place, rather than allow others to dictate their fate.

Moscow and Beijing, which have twice blocked UN Security Council resolutions on Syria, signed up to the final agreement that did not make any explicit call for Assad to cede power.

Official Syrian media and the opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC) group demonstrated rare agreement in slamming the outcome.

The meeting "failed", trumpeted Al-Baath, newspaper of the ruling party of the same name.

The LCC, which organises protests on the ground in Syria, said the outcome showed once again a failure to adopt a common position.

Opposition groups are to hold a two-day meeting in Cairo from Monday and are also expected to hold talks on Tuesday with Arab ministers in a bid to agree on a shared platform, Egyptian media and the Arab League said.

The Geneva deal came despite initial pessimism over the talks amid deep divisions between the West and China and Russia on how to end the violence that the Observatory says has killed more than 15,800 since March 2011.

Syria's neighbour Turkey, which attended the Geneva talks, scrambled fighter jets after Syrian helicopters flew close to its border, the army said on Sunday, hiking tensions following last month's downing of a Turkish plane.

Six F-16 warplanes took off from airbases in south Turkey on Saturday after Syrian helicopters flew closer to the border than is normal, the army said, specifying there had been three incidents but no violation of Turkish airspace.

In weekend violence, more than 140 people were killed across Syria, including 120 on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On Sunday, at least 21 people were killed, including five in the central province of Hama, according to the Britain-based watchdog.