Syria may agree to prisoner swaps before Geneva peace talks

Foreign minister also says he has asked Russia to help with 'security arrangements' in largely rebel-held Aleppo

Walid al-Moualem and Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Photograph: Reuters

Syria has signalled it is prepared to agree prisoner exchanges before the long-awaited Geneva II peace conference and the first face-to-face meeting between the government and rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

Walid al-Moualem, Syria's foreign minister, also announced in Moscow on Friday that he had asked his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to help with "security arrangements" in Aleppo. If successful, the plan could be used as a model for other parts of Syria, he said. The northern city is largely under opposition control.

Russia has been pressing Syria to agree to ceasefires, humanitarian access and other confidence-building measures before the UN conference, in the hope of creating a transitional government in Damascus – a move that has so far been blocked by rebel demands that Assad step down.

Moscow seems to be backing Syria's insistence that the talks, due to begin in the Swiss city of Montreux next Wednesday, focus on combating "terrorism", which Assad says is backed by the west and Gulf Arab states.

However, regime talk of readiness for humanitarian gestures appeared to be an attempt to secure tactical advantage and political approval rather than indicating a readiness for any substantive concessions to the rebels.

Friday's conciliatory message was compromised by a senior Syrian official's comments on Thursday that the conflict, which has claimed an estimated 130,000 lives since March 2011, would only be settled by "the military triumph of the state".

The Assad regime is widely perceived to have won the upper hand in both military and political terms since a chemical weapons agreement last September and the deepening of a sub-conflict within the opposition between mainstream rebels and al-Qaida-type groups.

Opposition doubts about whether to attend Geneva have intensified as the conference has approached. The western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) is meeting in Istanbul on Friday to make a decision, and there are profound divisions and doubts over whether diplomacy is relevant to the situation on the ground. Many rebel fighting units inside Syria say there is no point negotiating with Assad.

The SOC, headed by the Saudi-backed Ahmed al-Jarba, has come under heavy pressure from the US and Britain to attend. John Kerry, the US secretary of state, called Geneva "the best opportunity for the opposition to achieve the goals of the Syrian people and the revolution".

SOC sources said it was still possible that a majority of its 120-strong assembly would back attendance at the conference, but warned it could trigger mass resignations. It remains adamant that Assad step down, though the Geneva I communique of June 2012 stipulates that a transitional government must be formed "by mutual consent".

Prospects for Geneva have been further weakened by the decision of the National Co-ordination Bureau – an internal opposition group tolerated by Assad – to boycott the talks, raising the probability that the Geneva II conference will in fact be a grand opening ceremony without a follow-up "peace process" between the government and opposition.

It remains unclear whether Iran will be invited to attend, as Syria and Russia have demanded. The US and Britain say Iran can only participate if it plays a "positive role". Moscow and Tehran are Assad's closest allies.

Reuters reported that in recent weeks Russia had stepped up supplies of military equipment to Syria, including armoured vehicles, drones and guided bombs.

Syria's national reconciliation minister, Ali Haidar, has said the conference will not end the war. "Don't expect anything from Geneva II," he told a seminar in Damascus. "Neither Geneva II, not Geneva III nor Geneva X will solve the Syrian crisis. The solution has begun, and will continue through the military triumph of the state … and through the staying power and resilience of the state and all its institutions in the face of its enemies who were betting on its collapse