UNITED NATIONS: UN leader Ban Ki-moon discussed deadlocked efforts to end the Syria conflict with the major powers yesterday amid mounting signs that peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is to quit.
Diplomats and UN spokesman Martin Nesirky confirmed the meeting but declined to say whether Brahimi has already told the United Nations and Arab League that he would be leaving.
A senior aide to the 79-year-old former Algerian foreign minister told AFP no announcement of any resignation was likely to be made until mid-May. Diplomats say however that Brahimi is determined to leave the post.
The permanent Security Council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — have all been urging Brahimi to stay in the position he took up in August last year after former UN leader Kofi Annan quit, diplomats said.
Brahimi wants to leave out of growing frustration with the deadlocked international efforts to end the two-year-old civil war in which the UN says well over 70,000 people have been killed.
“People are saying ‘we want a political solution’ but no one is taking serious steps towards that,” said the aide, speaking to AFP in Cairo on condition of anonymity because of the topic’s sensitivity. Brahimi has been criticised by the Syrian opposition, and Assad’s government said last week it would no longer cooperate with him.
But the Arab League decision to recognise the opposition Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate government of Syria was the final straw for the veteran UN troubleshooter, diplomats said.
The aide said Brahimi has not yet resigned. “But as you know, he said he thinks about this every day,” the aide said.
Ban and the ambassadors from the Security Council’s five permanent members held informal discussions on Syria, said Nesirky.
AFP
