Both sides in Syria agree to humanitarian aid

PARIS - In a first, fragile step toward peace, Syria's government and the main moderate opposition group seeking to oust it have agreed to allow humanitarian aid into some blocked-off parts of the scarred Mideastern country.

The agreement was announced by the top envoys for the United States and Russia, who together are working the opposite sides to broker progress in any possible way to ease the bloody strife that has engulfed Syria for nearly three years without an end in sight.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are still pushing for a cease-fire in local pockets around the country and a prisoner exchange, which they said would help set the tone for compromise in the run-up to a peace conference scheduled for next week.

Both men grimly conceded that a final settlement for both sides to build a new government would happen no time soon - if ever.

"But we must begin, and we must begin now," Kerry told reporters in Paris. He said the process "will be difficult and will take some time."

Lavrov said: "We're going to do everything in our power to initiate a process. . . . This is not going to be a onetime event."

The peace process has been beset in recent weeks by chaos within the Western-backed opposition group, known as the Syrian National Coalition, which is one of the only alliances of rebel fighters and political leaders willing to deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad's government.

The coalition is in exile and has lost widespread credibility within its ranks and among rival opposition officials and rebel groups in Syria that have broken away and are fighting for the upper hand against al-Qaeda-linked militants.

An estimated 130,000 people have been killed in the war that began in early 2011, and as many as eight million others have been forced from their homes, Kerry said. The number of refugees stands at about two million, he said.