If the planned Geneva peace talks on Syria fail, it will mark the end of the road for attempts to find a negotiated solution to the conflict, and should open the door to the wholesale delivery of arms to the rebels, a Turkish minister has said.

Omer Celik, the foreign affairs chief in Turkey’s ruling AKP party, portrayed the Geneva meeting planned for mid-June as a last chance for the international community to salvage its credibility in the face of two years of slaughter in which more than 80,000 people have died.

Serious obstacles remain to the talks being held at all, however, including divisions in the international community over whether Iran should take part, and disarray among Syrian opposition groups.

On Wednesday evening the Syrian government confirmed for the first time that it would attend the peace talks. It has not decided on the make-up of its delegation. Russia has previously said it can guarantee a high-level presence from Damascus.

A senior UN official involved in preparing the talks told the Guardian that the biggest problem was getting the right people from both sides of the conflict to attend. “We need credible negotiating partners. This is the most important issue. This is not yet solved. The first condition concerns the quality of the talks,” he said.

Russian officials have also warned that the lifting of the EU arms embargo, due to take effect on Saturday, undermined prospects for the talks. In a further sign of mounting friction in the runup to the Geneva meeting Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, also took aim yesterday at a US-backed resolution at the UN human rights council condemning the Syrian government. Lavrov described the resolution as odious and unwholesome.

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