‘Slim’ chance of truce during DAMASCUS: Hopes of a truce being implemented in war-torn Syria during this week’s Eid Al Adha holidays are “slim,” the Arab League said yesterday, as rebels and troops engaged in fierce clashes in Damascus and on northern battlefields.
But the United Nations held on to the hope that the two warring sides will observe a truce during the four-day holiday which begins on Friday, saying it had plans to assemble a peacekeeping force if a ceasefire takes hold.
“We are getting ourselves ready to act if it is necessary and a mandate is approved,” UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said in New York.
He warned, however, that the plans would need the approval of the 15-nation Security Council which has been divided on the 19-month conflict.
UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said he contacted political opposition leaders inside and outside Syria and armed groups in the country and “found them to be very favourable” to the idea of a truce.
But Arab League Deputy Secretary General Ahmed Ben Helli dashed those hopes.
“Unfortunately, hope for implementing the truce during Eid
Al Adha is slim so far,” he said on the sidelines of the World Energy Forum in Dubai.
“The signs, both on the ground and by the government... do not point to the presence of any real will” to implement a truce.
In Damascus, two bombs exploded last evening after a day of pitched battles between troops and rebels on the edge of the capital, in the northern city of Aleppo and in the northwestern rebel-held town of Maaret Al Numan.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 84 people, including 22 civilians, were killed across the country, adding to a toll of more than 34,000 people killed since the anti-regime revolt erupted in March last year.
Brahimi said a temporary truce could be the first step to a more permanent peace, and has called on “every Syrian” to embrace a truce.
President Bashar Al Assad met Brahimi on Sunday and said he was “open to any sincere efforts seeking to find a political solution to the crisis based on respecting Syria’s sovereignty and rejecting any foreign interference.” AFPEid in Syria
