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Mr. Brahimi's talks with United States Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov of Russia will consider ways to implement an agreement major powers reached in Geneva last June providing for the formation of a transitional government and ending almost two years of conflict in which the United Nations says 60,000 people have died.

That deal, however, left undecided the role President Bashar al-Assad might play in a transitional government. Despite growing concerns in Washington and Moscow over the threat to regional security posed by the conflict and the deepening humanitarian crisis, discussions have so far failed to bridge the gap among the powers on the fate of Mr. Assad. The United States and the Syrian opposition say he must step aside, but Russia, the Syrian president's main ally, insists that his future can only be decided by the Syrians.

Friday's meeting, the second in Geneva in a month, came amid reports of fierce fighting round a military air base near Idlib and days after a defiant speech by Mr. Assad in which he condemned "foreign meddling" and made no concession to the demands of opposition groups described as terrorists or puppets of foreign powers.

The difficulties confronting Mr. Brahimi's efforts to broker a political solution only increased when the Syrian government on Thursday accused the veteran Algerian diplomat of "flagrant bias" over remarks he made to the media suggesting President Assad would have to give up power.

Mr. Brahimi, talking to journalists after Mr. Assad's speech, described it as a missed opportunity and said that "surely he would not be a member" of the transitional government created under the terms of the formula agreed in Geneva last year.

Syria's Foreign Ministry expressed surprise at Mr. Brahimi's remarks and said they showed he "is flagrantly biased for those who are conspiring against Syria and its people."