Talks between the United States and Russia to set up a Syrian peace conference produced no deal on Tuesday, June 24, with the powers on either side of the two-year civil war failing to agree when it should be held or who would be invited.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal accused the Syrian government of “genocide” and described the involvement in the conflict of foreign militias backed by Iran as “the most dangerous development.”

Washington and Moscow announced plans for the peace conference last month, but their relations have since deteriorated rapidly, as momentum on the battlefield has swung in favor of President Bashar Assad.

Washington decided this month to provide military aid to the rebels fighting Assad, while Moscow refused to drop its support for the Syrian leader it has continued to arm.

After five hours of talks in Geneva sponsored by the United Nations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said there was still no agreement over whether Assad’s ally Iran should be allowed to attend the conference, or who would represent the Syrian opposition.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet next week, and further talks on the conference are expected to follow, a U.N. statement said.

In Damascus, Assad’s forces fired mortars and shells at Zamalka and Irbin, just east of the government-held city center, in an assault backed by air strikes, opposition activists said.

Rebels who grabbed footholds in Damascus nearly a year ago say they now face an advancing Syrian military buoyed by support from Hizbullah.

If the insurgents are driven from the capital’s eastern suburbs, they would lose supply routes and suffer a heavy blow in their drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.

In Jeddah, Prince Saud repeated Saudi Arabia’s call for the rebels to be armed. “Syria is facing a double-edged attack. It is facing genocide by the government and an invasion from outside the government,” he told a news conference with Kerry. “(It) is facing a massive flow of weapons to aid and abet that invasion and that genocide. This must end.”

The Saudi foreign minister attacked Iranian involvement. “The most dangerous development is the foreign participation, represented by Hizbullah and other militias supported by the forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,” he said.

Security in Syria’s neighbors Iraq and Lebanon, where the conflict has aggravated sectarian tensions, has crumbled.

Suicide bombers killed eight people north of Baghdad on Tuesday, a day after 39 people died when 10 car bombs exploded in the capital. Violence has spiraled in Iraq since April.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League mediator, urged the United States and Russia to help “contain this situation that is getting out of hand, not only in Syria but also in the region”.

Speaking in Geneva before the talks with U.S. and Russian officials, Brahimi said he doubted that the Syria peace conference could take place next month, citing disarray among Assad’s political opponents.

More than 93,000 people have been killed in Syria since peaceful protests erupted in March 2011. Assad’s violent response helped to provoke what is now a civil war that has driven nearly 1.7 million refugees into neighboring countries.

Outgunned rebels are looking to Western and Arab nations to help them to reverse Assad’s gains. But although the United States announced unspecified military aid this month, it is unclear whether this can shift the balance against the Syrian leader and his allies.

Kerry wants to ensure aid to the rebels is properly coordinated, partly out of concern that weapons could end up in the hands of Islamist militants who are prominent in their ranks. “Our goal is very clear, we cannot let this be a wider war, we cannot let this contribute to more bloodshed and prolongation of the agony of the people of Syria,” he said.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister said Wednesday, June 26, that all personnel had been evacuated from the navy resupply base in Syrian coastal City of Tartus, adding that not a single Russian military serviceman remained in the country.

Mikhail Bogdanov made the announcement in an interview with the Al-Hayat newspaper. “Presently, the Russian Defense Ministry has not a single person stationed in Syria. The base does not have any strategic military importance,” the newspaper quoted the Russian official as saying.

Russian media have verified the statement and the business daily Vedomosti quoted an unnamed source in the Defense Ministry as saying that this was true as all military and civilian personnel had been evacuated from the Tartus base and there were no Russian military instructors working with the Syrian military forces. The source added that the withdrawal was prompted not only by the increased risks caused by the ongoing military conflict, but also by the fact that in the current conditions any incident involving Russian servicemen would likely have some unfavorable reaction from the international community.

Russia currently has a 16-ship flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea but none of them has called at the port of Tartus in recent months and there were no reports of such plans.

Mikhail Bogdanov is also Russian President’s plenipotentiary for Middle East issues and he headed the Russian delegation at this week’s talks between Russia, U.S. and U.N. on preparations of the Geneva-2 conference.