“Frankly now, I doubt whether the conference will take place in July,” Mr. Brahimi said ahead of talks in Geneva with Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Bogdanov and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman.

This meeting, the first since the officials last met on 5 June, is due to pave the way for a potential conference aimed at finding a political settlement to the fighting between the Syrian army and opposition forces seeking to oust President Bashar Al-Assad, which since March 2011 has claimed more than 93,000 lives and sent some 1.5 million people fleeing to neighbouring countries for safety.

The representatives will be assessing what needs to be done “to create the right conditions for the Geneva Conference on Syria to take place with the best chances of success,” including the best time for it to be held, who should participate, how it should be structured and some of the questions to be discussed.

The Government of Syria has said it would attend such a conference, Mr. Brahimi said, while the opposition is expected to next meet on 4 or 5 July and would not be ready for an international conference that same month.

Mr. Brahimi said that while today’s trilateral meeting would not resolve all the basic questions, “I am confident that our discussions will be constructive and I am also confident that we will make progress.”

The situation on the ground in Syria “has hardly improved” since the June meeting, the envoy noted. “It is still relentless destruction, killing, more suffering, more injustice, and more uncertainty for the future of the Syrian people.”

There are also signs that the conflict is spreading across the border to neighbouring countries.

In Lebanon, more than 50 people were killed in clashes that broke out on 23 June between the army and supporters of a Sunni cleric in the southern city of Sidon, Mr. Brahimi said.

He added his voice to the condemnation by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly and the ambassadors of the permanent five Security Council members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“I naturally strongly support the statement of the Secretary-General, and I express my personal support to President Michel Sleiman, to the Lebanese Army and to all those who are acting to contain this very serious crisis in their country,” Mr. Brahimi said.

“The situation is extremely bad and we need action from the Council,” Brahimi told reporters at UN Headquarters following a closed-door session with the Council.

“The opposition and the government have got to accept to come to negotiations, and both sides have got to accept that these negotiations are necessary,” Brahimi added.

Latest figures showing 6.8 million people in need, 4.25 million people internally displaced and an additional 1.3 million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries from a conflict that has killed over 70,000 people since opposition forces sought to oust President Bashar Al-Assad in 2011.

Brahimi told journalists that he tried to aid the creation of a ‘Syria Plan’ through discussions with both sides in Syria and through discussions with the 15-member Security Council, particularly Russia and the United States.

“With the Syrians, I got nowhere. With the Security Council, with the Americans and the Russians we made some progress, but it was far too weak,” said Brahimi.

“I am very happy that the Americans and the Russians are talking to one another. I’m very happy that from the discussions we just heard, the Security Council is very now aware that this is an extremely serious problem. As a matter of fact, the most serious crisis,” he continued.

“If they really believe that and they are in charge of looking at the peace and security there is no time for them to lose,” Brahimi stressed.

The Security Council heard from top United Nations officials, including Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos who said that humanitarian organizations are facing enormous and dramatically growing constraints in aiding millions of Syrians overwhelmed by the ‘human catastrophe’ that the war-torn country has become.

In response to questions from journalists yesterday afternoon, Brahimi also denied rumours that he planned to resign. “Every day I wake up, I think I should resign, but I haven’t so far,” he said.

After a meeting at Arab League headquarters in Cairo with Nabil Elaraby, Brahimi said negotiations could begin on United Nations headquarters.

Brahimi told if dialogue starts at the U.N. headquarters between the opposition and a delegation from the Syrian government, it will be the beginning for getting Syria out of this dark tunnel.

Exiled Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib has offered to hold peace talks with the Syrian government, saying he is willing to sit down with the deputy of President Bashar al-Assad.

It is uncertain whether he had received any indication of Syria’s willingness to enter into talks with Alkhatib and the SNC.

An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the uprising began against Assad’s rule in March 2011.

Khatib is expected to visit Assad’s supporters in Moscow in the coming weeks, as is Assad’s foreign minister Walid Muallem, according to Syrian state television.

Meanwhile, clashes took place between several rebel groups and regime forces near the Neyrab military airport on Sunday with rebels taking over a military checkpoint near the airport.

At the same time, the U.N. refugee agency says it has not yet received the funds recently pledged for Syrian refugees and is struggling to help the rising numbers fleeing the country’s conflict. Andrew Harper, the agency’s representative to Jordan, told AP on Sunday that the $1.5 billion pledged last month at an international donor conference in Kuwait “has not come through.”

With no end in sight to the conflict, tens of thousands of Syrians continue to flee their homes, many seeking shelter outside Lebanon. More than 720,000 Syrians are now either registered as refugees or awaiting registration in neighbouring countries, including almost 240,000 in Lebanon.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York that Syria’s current path of violence will lead the country “to its destruction,” and there is an urgent need to move towards a political solution.

“It has to be a Syrian-led process; it can’t be imposed,” Mr. Feltman told reporters after he briefed a closed meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the war-torn Middle Eastern country.

Mr. Feltman also said that the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for the crisis in Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, was working with “great urgency.”

Syria has been wrecked by violence, with at least 20,000 civilians killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, some 20 months ago. The violence has produced more than 380,000 refugees, and more than 2.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to UN estimates.

As part of his efforts to halt the violence in Syria, Mr. Brahimi has had a range of meetings on the matter, both regional and elsewhere. Earlier this week, in Cairo, he met with Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Nabil El-Araby. Last week, he held meetings in Moscow and Beijing.

“Political efforts are going on with great urgency,” Mr. Feltman said. “The situation inside Syria is turning grimmer every day,” he told reporters, adding there was a growing risk the crisis could “explode outward into an already volatile region.”

Syria-related violence has occurred in Turkey and Lebanon, and what Mr. Feltman called “activities” have been present in Golan, an area sandwiched between Syria and Israel, where the peacekeeping mission known as the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) monitors the 1974 disengagement agreement keeping Israeli and Syrian forces apart.

“We don’t think the fighting is directed at undermining the disengagement of forces agreement per se,” Mr. Feltman said in response to a question on the situation in Golan. “It is the Syrian-on-Syrian fighting.”

Mr. Feltman noted how Joint Special Representative Brahimi saw a June communiqué by the UN-backed Action Group on Syria as still providing an “important building block” for an eventual peace.

The Action Group is made up by the Secretaries-General of the UN and the Arab League; the Foreign Ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – as well as the Turkish Foreign Minister; the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; and the Foreign Ministers of Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar, in their respective roles related to the Arab League.

At a meeting in Geneva in June, the Group had agreed on a set of principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led transition that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people. Among other proposed measures, the meeting called on all parties to immediately re-commit to a cessation of armed violence, in addition to the establishment of a transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers and would be made up of members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups.

The envoy “will return with some ideas for action by the Security Council at the beginning of next month,” a UN diplomat said according to AFP. The diplomat said: “The political process can not start until Assad and the opposition are so beaten that they have no other choice. They are not there yet, but Brahimi has some ideas “.

Brahimi will head this week for Russia and China to discuss the crisis. In Beijing and Moscow, Brahimi will once again try to convince leaders to give up their objection for an action by the UN Security Council.

Meanwhile, fierce fighting has erupted in Damacus between government forces and rebels, with the rival sides accusing each other of breaching the ceasefire.

Syrian fighter jets have bombarded eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus, activists say.

Warplanes reportedly hit the adjacent suburbs of Zamalka, Arbeen, Harasta and Zamalka on Sunday, where government forces are trying to root out rebels according to Al Jazeera.

Activists also reported fighting in the nearby suburb of Douma.

Joint UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi had brokered a ceasefire that was supposed to begin on Friday, the first day of Eid al-Adha.

The opposition says an estimated 32,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in March last year.

“You will have seen his [Mr. Brahimi’s] comments in Cairo today earlier today, in which he said he expected an announcement by the Syrian Government regarding his proposed pause in fighting,” Martin Nesirky, the spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told a news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

“He said that many in the opposition have also responded positively,” Mr. Nesirky added.

According to media reports, the Joint Special Representative made the comments while addressing journalists in the Egyptian capital of Cairo; earlier in the week, Mr. Brahimi had been in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The Government of Syria will reportedly make an announcement on the ceasefire on Thursday – and was encouraged to do so positively by the Security Council which today received a briefing from Mr. Brahimi on his latest efforts.

More than 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 20 months ago. A further 2.5 million Syrians urgently need humanitarian aid, and over 340,000 have crossed the border to Syria’s neighbouring countries, according to UN estimates.

Last week, while in Tehran, Joint Special Representative Brahimi had appealed to Iranian authorities to assist in achieving a ceasefire in Syria during the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, underscoring that such a move, during one of the holiest holidays celebrated by Muslims around the world, would help create an environment that would allow a political process to develop.

Taking place on Friday, the religious observance of Eid al-Adha – or the Feast of the Sacrifice – commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.

Along with his counterpart at the League of Arab States, Nabil El Araby, the UN chief has called on all the parties in Syria to heed the call of Mr. Brahimi, in addition to calling on the international community to support the ceasefire appeal.

Today, following Mr. Brahimi’s video-conference briefing to the Security Council via video-conference, in a press statement read out by Ambassador Gert Rosenthal of Guatemala – which holds the Council’s Presidency for the month of October – the 15-member body welcomed the ceasefire initiative and joined its voice to that of the UN and Arab League Secretaries-General.

“The members of the Security Council called upon all parties, in particular on the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic as the stronger party, to respond positively to the initiative of the Joint Special Representative, and reiterated their call of the Syrian authorities to allow immediate, full and unimpeded access of humanitarian personnel to all populations in need of assistance, in accordance to international law and guiding principles of humanitarian assistance,” Ambassador Rosenthal said.

The Council members also echoed Mr. Ban’s and Mr. El Araby’s calls for all regional and international actors to support the ceasefire proposal and to use their influence to facilitate its implementation.

“The members of the Council agreed that an Eid Al Adha cease-fire could be a first step towards a sustainable cessation of all violence,” Ambassador Rosenthal added, noting that such a halt would be in conformity with the Council’s resolutions 2042 and 2043, adopted earlier this year and which dealt with the Syrian conflict.

In the press statement, the Council members also called on the parties in Syria to cooperate with the UN and relevant humanitarian bodies to facilitate relief supplies, and in this context, called upon UN Member States to contribute urgently to the UN Syrian Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan, which seeks $348 million but has so far received $157 million.

In addition, the Council members underscored the need to launch an inclusive Syrian-led political transition “leading to a democratic, plural, political system that realizes the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people for democracy, equality and justice, regardless of their affiliation, ethnicities or beliefs.”

“People are asking me who is going to monitor the ceasefire? My answer to them is no one, I call upon the Syrians to monitor themselves.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh on Thursday met with UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi to discuss developments in Syria.

They underlined the impact of the Syrian crisis on neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan, which is hosting more than 200,000 Syrian refugees after they fled violence in their country, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

“We are closely following up on Brahimi’s efforts, and without a doubt his task is difficult and delicate as violence and killing are continuing in Syria,” Judeh said in statements after the meeting.

Judeh noted Brahimi’s calls for implementing a truce in Syria during Eid Al Adha.

Lakhdar Brahimi has been touring the region, attempting to gain international support for a temporary ceasefire in Syria during next week’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The Algerian diplomat’s visit to Syria for talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Saturday will be his last stop on a tour of countries that play influential roles in the Syrian crisis – Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, according to Al Jazeera.

The envoy will also meet with President Bashar al-Assad “very, very soon, but not on Saturday,” Brahimi’s spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, told AFP.

Damascus said it is ready to explore with Brahimi his proposal but wanted assurances that countries with influence on the rebels would pressure them to reciprocate.

Meanwhile, Syrian fighter jets blasted a residential road in northern Syria Thursday, Maraat al Numaan spewing rubble in all directions and killing at least 49 people, including 23 children, in a further escalation of violence in the war-torn country, rescuers said on Thursday according to AFP.

Rescuers said bombs destroyed two residential buildings and a mosque, where many women and children had been taking refuge, in the strategic northwestern town. Among those killed was a nine-month-old baby.

Rebels captured the strategic town on October 9 in a push to create a buffer zone along the Turkish border.

“This crisis cannot remain within Syria’s borders forever,” the joint UN-Arab League envoy said on Wednesday.

“Either it is resolved, he said, or it will spill over and consume everyone.”

Mr. Brahimi was speaking in the capital, Beirut, following a meeting with the country’s President and other senior leaders.

UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky said they discussed the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for a ceasefire in Syria to be initiated by the government and to which the opposition would respond positively.

He added that Mr. Brahimi also reiterated the Secretary-General’s call for all countries that provide arms to the various parties in Syria to stop doing so.

Brahimi said he was visiting Syria’s neighbours to listen to their views on the crisis, adding he would also visit Damascus, but not specifying a date.

Meanwhile, Syria has said it is prepared to explore a truce proposal by international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

But spokesman Jihad Makdissi stressed that the rebels and their backers would also need to be involved.

Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi, who met Brahimi on Tuesday, backed the truce proposal and asked for international support. Turkey also voiced its support. Iran also backs the idea of a ceasefire, according to Iran’s state news agency.

Fighting continued on Wednesday, with activists reporting clashes in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo as well as outside Damascus, according to Al Jazeera.

Amateur videos posted online showed what activists said was a helicopter shot down by rebel fire near the northern town of Maaret al-Numan.

All international efforts to end Syria’s cconflict to date have failed. Both rebels and government forces have disregarded previous ceasefires.

The Syrian uprising has claimed about 31,000 lives since March last year, according to activists.

Brahimi warned that the Syrian civil war is worsening and the country faces a growing food crisis.

“There is no prospect for moving forward today or tomorrow,” Mr. Brahimi told journalists following a briefing of the Security Council on the issue. “But I also told the Council that, paradoxically, now that I have found out a little more about what is happening in the country and the region, I think that we will find an opening in the not-to-distant future.”

Brahimi briefed the council for the first time about his recent visit to Damascus and the wider region, including his talks with Assad, ahead of the annual UN General Assembly gathering which begins on Tuesday. More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President al-Assad began in March 2011. In addition, more than 260,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries and an estimated 2.5 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Mr. Brahimi recently returned from his trip to the Middle East where he met with President al-Assad to discuss the crisis. He then visited refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, where he heard first-hand accounts of the struggles facing those who fled the conflict in their homeland.

On Saturday, upon his return from the region, the Joint Special Representative met with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to address the violence in Syria and on how to progress towards an inclusive political solution that will address the legitimate demands of the Syrian people

In his press encounter today, Mr. Brahimi acknowledged that while he did not have “a full plan” as of yet on how to tackle the escalating conflict, he planned on returning to Syria soon.

“I’m returning to the region and I have agreed with the Council that I will come back here as soon as I can with more ideas on how we can move forward,” Mr. Brahimi continued. “I refuse to believe that reasonable people do not see that you cannot go backward; that you cannot go back to the Syria of the past.”

Turning his attention to the Security Council’s ongoing deadlock – due to differences over how to proceed, the Council has so far been unable to unite and take collective action to put an end to the crisis – Mr. Brahimi said he was encouraged by the Council members’ interest in the situation and their “generous support” to his mission. He also called on both the Council and the League of Arab States to remain united in their position.

“I said that if I do not represent the entire Council, I’m nothing,” Mr. Brahimi stated. “I need to be seen to represent a united Council and united League of Arab States.”

Addressing the press stakeout, Ambassador Peter Wittig of Germany, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency for this month, said the Council welcomed the opportunity to discuss the situation in Syria with Mr. Brahimi and that the Council members expressed grave concern about the ongoing violence in the country and its humanitarian impact.

For his part, Mr. Brahimi noted that there was “no disagreement anywhere” that the situation in Syria was getting worse and that the violence had turned into a threat to regional peace and security. Nevertheless, he urged patience. “Please don’t forget that I started just three weeks ago,” he noted.

In their meeting, which took place on the margins of the recently opened 67th session of the General Assembly, Mr. Ban and Mr. Brahimi focused on how to address the appalling levels of violence in Syria and on how to progress towards an inclusive political solution that will address the legitimate demands of the Syrian people, according to a statement issued by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson.

More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. In addition, more than 260,000 Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries and an estimated 2.5 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

During his trip to Damascus last week, Mr. Brahimi met with Mr. al-Assad to discuss the escalating crisis. He then visited refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, where he gained first-hand accounts of the struggles facing those who fled the conflict in their homeland.

Mr. Ban and Mr. Brahimi agreed that the crisis represents a steadily increasing threat to regional peace and security and discussed the importance of the presence of world leaders at UN Headquarters in the coming days as an opportunity to encourage increased support for addressing the violence in Syria and its impact on the neighbouring countries.

Earlier this month, Mr. Brahimi assumed the peace-facilitation role, which had been carried out since February by former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, with the aim of bringing an end to all violence and human rights violations in Syria, and promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict. He is scheduled to brief the Security Council on Monday morning.