miners were trapped when a boulder blocked the entrance. some of the miners reportedly try id to stay behind for fear of criminal charge. inside story is next on al jazeera america. >> the peace talks may have broken up, but there has never been a pause in the fighting in syria. the dying and destruction of neighborhoods has continued. what is next for syria? that's the inside story. hello, i'm ray suarez. in ancient times just before and

after the olympic festivals greece would call a truce that would allow competitors to travel unmolested to the games. as the russian president opened the games in sochi, they played an active roll in getting the warring sides in syria in peace talks. but there was not truce. the syrians are blaming their enemies for making demands that guarantee the fighting and dying would continue back at home. baasecretary of state john kerry called it forism, a term the assad government has reserved for its opponents in simple war? what has happened now?

it's made the area dangerousy unstable. the last session of the second round of talks in geneva lasted just 27 minutes and ended with an apology from united nations' mediator l akhda brahimi. >> i apologize to the syrian people who had hopes that were very high that something would happen here. i think the little that has happened has given them more hope, that this is the beginning of coming out of this horrible crisis now. i apologize to them, but on this go rounds we have not had anything happen very much. >> secretary kerry said that

bashar al-assad would rather win this on the battlefield rather than coming to the negotiate table in good faith. citing it's assault of the syrian people with barrel bombs and starvation. >> assad himself is a magnate for terrorists. he is the principle magnet in the region for attracting terrorist fighters to the region. he has brought terror against his own people. >> it is the u.s. and russia who brought them to the negotiating table in the first place, but secretary kerry said the military support for the assad regime has enabled assad to double down, creating a a an enormous problem. syria pushed back stating it was

a negative climate for the talks. the opposition blamed the regime. >> we're saying the way the regime is negotiate something not lead to go a result, this is not only a conviction from our side. this is a conviction that these negotiations are not going in any direction. [ sirens ] >> reporter: more than 140,000 syrians have died since the beginning of the civil war. nearly half of those killed were civilians, 7,000 were children. with the bleak humanitarian situation the rehumanitarian relief agency was able to evacuate over a thousand people from the ancient city of homs after 18 months of fighting that has ruined the old city, allowing peace keepers to guide out of the city women, children, and disabled residents caught in the middle of the brutal battle. while thousands more remain behind the united nations is

requesting a continuation of the cease-fire in order to get much needed food and supplies to a city under siege. the opposition groups fighting to topple the syrian government are still fighting amongst themselves. on monday the main group backed by the united states replaced it's general for ineffectiveness and losing the confidence of u.s. and other allies. president obama spoke about the situation in syria before the talks broke down. he was meeting in california with king abdullah of jordan, where there are 6,000 syrian refugees. >> we'll take steps to help the humanitarian situation there. there will be immediate steps we can take to apply more pressure to the assad regime, and we're going to continue to work with all the parties concerned to try to move forward o on the

diplomatic inclusion. >> for now there is no diplomatic solution on the horizon. a third round of talks on syria has been promised but no date has been set. >> so where do we go from here? is the u.s. out of options? are the russians ready to bargain? is there hope for the people of syria? joining us now is daniel senior research professor of conflict management at johns hopkins schools of advance international studies. also a scholar at the middle east institute. from new york city michael weiss fellow from the institute of modern russia and columnist. he has covered the story from inside syria including the siege of aleppo in 2012. and heather, her work focuses on the civilian and conflict

resolution. and let me start with you. in conflict resolution, we have a leader who is willing to do anything to stay in power, and at the same time knows his opponents are not willing to do anything to make him leave. >> we have two basic problems. that's one. the other one is the neighbors' neighbors who want different things and each want different things more than to have the violence to stop. if you had agreement amongst syria's neighbors you might have more on the first one you mentioned. but it's very hard to see how the violence stops. >> during the peace talks that just ended, daniel, sir, were we fated to end with this failure, this break up that we saw over the weekend once it was clear that the opposition was going to stick to its guns, that it wouldn't countenance any transitional deal that ended with bashar al-assad's staying in power? >> i think it was fated, and i

think it's fated not by the position of the opposition, but by the situation on the ground. bashar al-assad thinks he has the advantage. he thinks he's winning. he thinks he can end at least opposition within an area he controls inside syria. as long as he believes that, i don't think he's going to be willing to discuss transition, which is what the opposition wants to discuss. the transition away from the dictatorship. >> people are dying in really large numbers. is he really to fight to the last syrian? >> he appears to be ready to fight to the last syrian. he certainly has been ready to kill even more syrians than his father killed. i don't see any limit of conscience, let's put it that way, any limit from him. if he's going to be limited, then he has to be limited by a force on the other side, or by his allies, iran and russia, and

in particular. which have given him basically a blank check so far. >> let's talk about that blank check, michael weiss. is there an extent which assad might go that would appeal away from russia? is there daylight already between damascus and moscow? >> i have been hearing there is daylight between damascus and mass co-for three years, but still assad is still in power and russia has increased it's arms sells to the syrian regime. this man feels he has absolute impunity and a new lease on life. and the west has misplayed it's own hand. the chemical weapons disarmament deal and the result of the threat of military action was always to my mind a rather clever trap set by vladimir putin and the russian government. that trap i think is now caught it's quarry, the united states.

what this deal has done and what we've seen play out in geneva is the assad government, made him an indispensable partner to the west by getting rid of the chemical stock pile and only 11% of those chemical stock piles have been removed from the country and even the agency responsible for the removal is casting about with dire predictions about whether or not a june 2014 deadline can be met. the russian government has categorically rejected a draft resolution which would authorize humanitarian corridors in the country to a greater scale than what we've seen in homes. any sanctions or any punitive measures enacted at the security council is a pretext for invasion by the west. russia is in a very powerful position. iran is in a powerful position, and bashar al-assad believes he'll never be forced from power and i'm afraid, increasingly

he's more right. >> a very powerful position but so powerful there is no limit to what he could do where we start to have a diplomatic cost to russia? >> you put the presiden presidee united states on the air after a confab. it's on crisis mitigation, not crisis why is resolution. the west and the united states do not want to take what action was necessary to remove him and remove that regime. so the consequences are going to be band aids o on the hemorrhag. you're seeing this explode throughout the reason. look at lebanon. my magazine butt up a very--puta

very good article. you have a deep sectarian conflict fomented not by the opposition but the regime. this was part of the plan. let's annihilate sunnies and put out a cat call to al-qaeda and the iranian government to send out shiite fighters and turn this into a secretary tyrian conflict, a moras that the u.s. will never want to get involved in. >> getting ready for various reasons to countenance what is going on there, can you see things getting to a point where they won't? >> yes, and what i would disagree with what michael has said is that the reasons that russia is willing to do what it's doing is that syria is it's last ally and point of entry into middl middle eastern politd power place.

when assad takes things to a level that becomes clear that in the long run he won't survive and nobody in the region will work with him, then there will come a point where putin and the russians will want a new--will want a new ally or partner in the region, and at that point they'll be ready to bargain him away. now to dan's point how many more tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands have to die before with get to that point. that will be awhile. but because the russians are not in this out of sentiment for bashar al-assad, it will be when they're ready for a point of change. now because of the dynamics of disintegration others involved may think it's beyond the resolve. >> we'll come back and talk about what the united states and the world community needs to do

in the immediate future in syria. you're watching "inside story."

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>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. the diplomatic talks to end the crisis in syria have broken down. the finger pointing and tough talk continues as does the civil war with no end in sight. president obama said this weekend before the talks broke down that there will be some intermediate steps that we can take to apply more pressure to the assad regime. he did not elaborate and daniel, as you're watching this unfold maybe nostalgia is the wrong word but the longer this goes on, it starts to look more and more like a 50's or 60's style moscow-washington proxy war. >> it does, but i think there are limits to that notion. the real limit is that moscow and washington have in common a

desire not to see extremists multiply too much, russia in particular has to worry about chechens who may come back into russia and create havoc there. it seems to me what we've failed to do so far is convince them by continuing this fight the way bashar al-assad is continuing it will make life more difficult for russia itself. i think that's quite apparent that there will be terrorists who go into russia as a result of this, but i also think there will be a broad resentment in the sunni world as a result of what russia is doing in syria. so there is a common interest between the united states and russia as there was on chemical weapons, there is also in terrorism. we need to rebalance the battlefield a little bit. bashar al-assad is too

dominant on the battlefield to want a negotiated solution. the way to do that is either to strengthen the opposition forces by increasing dramatically the training and equipment that go to them, or damaging some how basbashar al-assad's forces, stp them from using artillery, aircraft to attack liberated areas. it seems rebalancing it would have a diplomatic impact. >> when it comes to fort flying the opposition a lot of the rest of the world is very cautious about doing what daniel has suggests. >> unfortunately, what has happened some of the world has not been risk aversed enough and has picked different groups to fund, some have turned out to be more closely linked with folks involved with terrorist games than we would like. one that sandy burger subjected

in the "washington post" is to stop funding and supporting those in liberating areas so they have some benefit for having thrown off the assad regime. also if you don't like the arming option is to consider a blockade or other ways to make it harder for bashar al-assad to be resupplied. if there are conflicts with russia, okay, why are you arming this guy? you have a whole range of military, non-military, very, very forceful to not very forceful at all options that most of which have been explored and given up as not feasible in the past, but as the body count mounts and as dan said we're trying to reduce and shift the balance of power. >> the world has talked a lot about russia as far as syria goes, but what will iran? what is their angle?

what role are they willing to play as they're trying to earn their way to a degree back into the world's good graces to deal in syria? >> well look, i think actually i sort of envy the relationship in and amongst damascus, russia and iran. they have a campaign that is this: what we're facing in syria is a terrorist threat by sunni extremists namely al-qaeda and others funded by saudi arabia, qatar and others. what they have engaged on war must do is put their notions of war crimes and atrociies aside and work with the regime and work with the russian government to help contain this crisis. i disagree with what daniel said. i don't think the kremlin is

exercised by the jihadi groups in syria. that plays exactly to the propaganda they've been putting out there since day one. namely bashar al-assad are terrorist. the assad regime blacklisted the delegates who attended the peace talks as terrorists and froze the assets of their family members. this does not seem like a guy who wants to compromise. and if at any point they assail their own ally and toldim to tap it down a bit, i don't see any evidence of that. i see them doubling down on the line that is coming out of damascus, which is this is a terrorist threat and nothing more. >> daniel, quick response? >> well, i think its true that up until now russia has not seen the threat from extremists in

syria, but i think there is a threat. so whatever the line is, it doesn't matte really matter. there will be a threat from terrorists. those who have been trained and experienced there. somebody in russia will realize that at some point we have to accelerate that process and get them to realize it more quickly. >> we're going to take a short break. when we come back we'll talk about american options in the region. the menu doesn't look that great. this is inside story.

>> welcome back to inside story. i'm ray suarez. on this edition of the program we're exploring the dwindling prospects for peace in syria following the contentious ends of negotiations in geneva. the syrian foreign minister blamed the united states for

creating a negative environment for talks. and secretary of state kerry blamed russia for not giving the support that it needs. joining us daniel, and michael and here in washington, heather, there were forces saying to the president of the united states late last year get in and don't get in, and everything that has happened since could be fodder for either argument. see, we were right not to get in, or boy, it could have been different had we. >> well, ray, let's be honest that unfortunately a lot of the argument in the united states has been much more about the politics of the united states than it is about either the geopolitics of the region or the suffering of the syrian people. but there continue to be a range of other things whether it's trying to implement financial

sanctions on the russian banks that are facilitating the arms deals to doing a lot more on the humanitarian side, including i would love to see some of the anti-immigration folks who have been amongst the harshest critics call on the president to take in more syrian refugees than we have up until now. >> michael, what about the near term? >> we're currently exploring some of those options and implementing them including increasing financial aid and indirectly arming some of the opposition particularly south of the country where the presence and dominance of the jihadi drops have been much less so than the north. the u.s. has committed millions of dollars working with saudi arabia to run light weapons, ak-4 ak-47s, missiles,d assigned itself in the south.

you know, i agree more can be done on the humanitarian front. i agree with heather allowing more refugees into the united states and european country where they have easier access to. i agree with heather about the limiting or the elimination, i should say of assad's resupply capability. this is a point that does not get a lot of attention. he's fully depend on foreign weaponry from iran or russia. most of it is flown in to the country. some of it is sailed into the country, you could implement a naval black said. we have a number of warships in the mediterranean. you could take out some of those runways without shooting planes out of the sky just to prevent the cargo resupplies of weapons from russia and iran. yes, this would pick a fight with the russians and iranians but they don't care about having a fight picked with them, and i

think they tend to revel with it, and they're not afraid to keep arming a guy who not only has committed grievous war crimes but gassed its own people. how much more do you need to know that diplomacy is not going to work than after that? he's still in power and being coaxed from the throne. >> dan, we have 90 seconds left. what is on your list of american options in the near term? >> i would suggest that we terminate formerly the geneva two talks because they failed. and we haven't said they failed. we said they haven't succeeded. we need to terminate them. we could consider recognizing the syrian opposition coalition as the legitimate government of syria. we could, as heather said, provide funding for the liberated areas with much more funding than we have been

providing. we could consider sanctions against syria for violating the chemical weapons agreement. i agree it was a boon, the chemical weapons agreement, too bashar al-assad. he hasn't fulfilled it. it gives us the options of adopting strict financial sanctions. >> well, we have to watch and see which the hard options, the soft options, which of any the united states chooses in the near term. thanks for being with me today. and thanks for being with us at home. that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. the program may be over but the conversation conditions. we want to know what you think about this or any day's shows. log int on to our facebook pager reach me directly @ray suarez news. in washington, i'm ray suarez.

it was sixty years ago, that a group of explorers made their first tentative steps into the unknown.