Syria proposes prisoner exchange

BBC Online

Muallem and Lavrov were meeting ahead of the Geneva II conference

Syria's foreign minister has said Damascus is ready to offer a prisoner exchange with rebels.
Speaking in Moscow, Walid Muallem also said he had presented a ceasefire plan for the second city Aleppo to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
The moves came as the opposition Syrian National Coalition meets in Istanbul to decide whether to go to next week's peace conference.
The coalition is under Western pressure to participate in the Geneva II talks.
However, many of its members have already pulled out.
Some are reluctant to go unless President Bashar al-Assad is excluded from any transitional government, but Damascus says there should be no pre-conditions for the talks.
Meanwhile Lebanese security officials said rockets fired from Syria had hit the Lebanese border town of Arsal, killing at least seven people, among them several children, and injuring at least 15.
Arsal, in the Bekaa valley, is predominantly Sunni and its residents have been broadly supportive of the Sunni-dominated uprising against President Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam.
The town has been flooded with refugees since the Syrian military launched an offensive nearby in November.
The three-year conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives.
An estimated two million people have fled the country and s