By Samia Nakhoul and Khaled Yacoub Oweis GENEVA (Reuters) - Syria peace talks were in disarray on Tuesday before they began, buffeted by a botched U.N. invitation to Iran, an explosion in Beirut and new evidence that appears to show Bashar al-Assad's government has tortured and killed thousands. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's unexpected, last-minute decision on Sunday to invite President Assad's main foreign backer Iran - only to withdraw the invitation a day later - proved a diplomatic fiasco, undermining talks that are already given little chance of success. War crimes lawyers said photographs apparently smuggled out of Syria by a military police photographer were clear evidence Assad's government has systematically tortured and killed some 11,000 detainees. One of three former international war crimes prosecutors who signed the report compared the images from Syria to the "industrial-scale killing" of Nazi death camps.
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January 21st, 2014
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