* ICRC President holds talks with senior SNC opposition official
* SNC says opposition wants at least three points of safe passage
* Aid agency favours two-hour ceasefire instead of humanitarian corridors (Updates with Syrian opposition figure, UN envoy to head to Syria)
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross met a Syrian opposition leader on Wednesday to discuss its initiative for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, and said it was pursuing contacts with all sides to reach civilians trapped by fighting.
ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger held talks in Geneva with Basma Kodmani, a senior official of the main opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), about its humanitarian initiative for a daily two-hour cessation of hostilities.
Kodmani, speaking later to reporters, said that the SNC wanted at least three points of safe passage for humanitarian convoys to enter Syrian cities from neighbouring countries, but that Russia must first convince its ally.
"There is international support for safe passage and humanitarian supplies being channeled into the country on a more massive scale. We need that massive scale," Kodmani said.
"If we have a commitment from the regime with Russian guarantees that will allow humanitarian assistance to be brought in through safe passages, we are asking for three safe passages at least -- from Lebanon into Homs, from Jordan into Deraa and Turkey into Idlib," she added.
The ICRC is the only international agency deploying aid workers in Syria, where the United Nations has been shut out.
The United Nations said on Wednesday its humanitarian chief Valerie Amos would head to Syria soon in an attempt to secure access for aid workers seeking to deliver emergency relief.
The people of Syria, especially those in the Baba Amro district of the besieged city of Homs who have endured weeks of heavy shelling, "feel abandoned, let down by the world", Kodmani said.
"The denial of medical care is for us another crime, apart from the crime of killing," she added.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, trying to hammer the city of Homs into submission, on Wednesday killed at least 80 people including two Western journalists in an onslaught that has caused an international outcry for intervention to end the bloodshed.
The ICRC appealed to Syrian authorities and rebels on Tuesday to agree a two-hour truce each day to allow supplies to reach civilians and evacuate the growing number of wounded in Homs and elsewhere.
"The discussions with the SNC were on the humanitarian situation inside Syria, the efforts exerted by the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and on the ICRC initiative for a humanitarian ceasefire," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said.
ICRC AGAINST AID CORRIDORS
The independent agency is seeking a daily ceasefire of hostilities based on a limited time period. It opposes the idea of humanitarian corridors as they are difficult to define and manage, according to chief ICRC spokeswoman Carla Haddad.
"We favour the concept of time which is a cessation of hostilities of two hours which is what we are urging the authorities and others to implement," she told Reuters TV.
The SNC's Kodmani said that the ICRC initiative is "a promising means of accessing the population", which had not yet been rejected by Assad's government.
But the opposition group is pushing for safe passage for aid convoys along geographically-defined paths, she said.
"They (the ICRC) choose to speak of time rather than space, it is less controversial and within the range of what they can ask for as a humanitarian organisation. They obviously cannot ask for safe passage," Kodmani said. "We see that safe passage would enhance their capacity to operate during that timeframe." (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Signe Grejsen Nissen and Vincent Fribault; Writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Rosalind Russell)