By Steve Gutterman MOSCOW (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government will decide soon whether to take part in peace talks with the opposition, a senior Syrian diplomat said after talks in Moscow. Asked whether Damascus had committed to joint Russian-U.S. efforts to hold a peace conference, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said: "We are still discussing these questions."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday hailed the Syrian regime's "constructive reaction" to a proposed peace conference on ending the bloodshed in the war-torn country, as he welcomed Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad in Moscow. "We value the constructive reaction by the Syrian leadership to the offer" of holding such an international event, Lavrov said.

AMMAN (Reuters) - About 30 fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were killed in heavy fighting with rebels in the town of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday. Opposition sources and state media gave sharply differing accounts of the outcome of Sunday's ferocious battles in the town, long used by rebels as a supply route from the nearby Lebanese border to the provincial capital Homs.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Russia agreed Friday that a peace conference on Syria should be held "as soon as possible" even as Moscow defied growing global pressure over its arms supplies to the Damascus regime. Ban met Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ahead of talks later Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about an impending international meeting on Syria that should include representatives of the two warring parties for the first time.