The UN and Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi has called on the divided United Nations Security Council to take action to end the ongoing conflict in Syria, saying it was “the last appeal”.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday, Brahimi said neither the Syrian people, nor the countries of the region, were able to find a way to end the conflict.
“All that is left is the wider international world,” he said, saying only the UN Security Council could find a solution. “You are the last appeal,” he told the conference.
“Please do your job…We need a clear decision from the Security Council to set the agenda for a peaceful solution of the problem.”
Brahimi went on to say that he would not give up hope that a solution for the country’s conflict would be found.
“But you know having hope doesn’t mean being starry eyed, and frankly now as we speak, I am much more conscious of the difficulties and of the country being broken, day after day than I am of a solution around the corner,” he said.
Mouaz al-Khatib, Syria’s top opposition leader, also spoke at the conference, saying he was willing to sit down for talks with President Bashar al-Assad’s government, “but the regime should make its own gesture by releasing 160,000 detainees”.
Khatib reiterated an offer first made on Wednesday, which had provoked an outcry from some opposition groups that insist Assad must step down first. He back-peddled on Thursday, saying he was just expressing his own opinion.
Khatib was chosen in November to head the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, a new umbrella group designed to represent most of the rebels and soothe Western concerns about the ability of the opposition to pull together and present a viable alternative to Assad’s rule.
Agencies
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