Rebel fighters from the Al Ezz bin Abdul Salam Brigade attend a training session at an undisclosed location near the Al Turkman mountains, in Syria’s northern Latakia province, yesterday.
BEIRUT: Syria accused international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi yesterday of bias and interference after he criticised its response to an opposition offer of talks and suggested Bashar Al Assad should not stand again for president.
Brahimi told a closed-door session of the United Nations Security Council last Friday that Damascus was “surprised and embarrassed” by a January offer of talks from opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, and its response was “slow and confused”.
At the conclusion of his remarks, which were later circulated by UN diplomats, Brahimi suggested Assad “voluntarily forego” the right to stand for another term as president in an election scheduled for next year.
Syria’s foreign ministry said in a statement that if Brahimi wished to continue his role, he must show impartiality and realise that “the Syrian people are the only decision-makers who will choose their representatives”.
“The briefing ... was marked by interference in the Syrian Arab Republic’s internal affairs and a lack of neutrality which should characterise his mission,” the ministry in a statement.
The ministry also said it would treat the veteran Algerian diplomat, who is the joint United Nations and Arab League envoy for Syria, as a purely UN envoy because it considered the Arab bloc as “a party to the conspiracy” against Assad.
Gulf Arab states, which hold sway over the League, have thrown their weight behind the rebels fighting to topple four decades of Assad family rule.
“The regime is not quite ready to listen (to peace proposals),” he said, and “the opposition is not as united as it should be around an established leadership and a credible, constructive political programme,” he said.
“Yes, this situation appears to be totally hopeless, with no light to be seen at the end of a long tunnel Syria is lost in.”
“Almost 50 percent of the Syrian population are being gravely affected by the conflict. I wonder if this is not a depressing record in the history of conflict,” he said.
Brahimi, appointed last year after the resignation of Kofi Annan, has made no secret of his frustration at the lack of progress towards a political solution to Syria’s civil war, chiding world powers whose political deadlock has paralysed the Security Council.
Reuters
