Veteran troubleshooter Lakhdar Brahimi took up faltering international attempts to end the Syria conflict yesterday, leaving predecessor Kofi Annan to tend his diplomatic wounds.
With Syria marking the bloodiest month yet in the civil war and mounting fears of turmoil in surrounding countries, there are low expectations that the former Algerian foreign minister will have any more success than Annan.
Most Western countries believe Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces will now fight it out with the opposition until one has an advantage that will allow a political accord.
Photo: Reuters
Brahimi, who made his name brokering an accord in Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s and as a UN envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq, was to hold meetings yesterday at the UN headquarters ahead of a handover encounter on Tuesday with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Annan, a UN spokesman said. Ban and Brahimi will discuss the war at the UN General Assembly the same day.
He expects to go to Damascus soon to meet al-Assad and to Cairo for talks with Arab League officials, his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. However, no details of any initiative have yet emerged.
Annan halted his six-month battle to make al-Assad and opposition rebels lay down their guns, complaining at the lack of support among the major powers for his six-point peace plan.
The former UN secretary-general had called for sanctions against al-Assad to make him comply with the plan, but Russia and China used their powers as permanent UN Security Council members to block three resolutions which could have led to economic measures.
The council is now hopelessly divided on any move on the 17-month old war which Syrian activists say has left more than 25,000 dead. The US, Britain, France and other Western and Arab nations are concentrating their efforts outside the council.
The Syrian opposition had virtually disavowed Annan’s efforts by the time he resigned and al-Assad had ignored all parts of the plan he had personally agreed with the envoy.
“Annan was the victim of an increasingly vicious campaign of public denunciations, not least by friends of the rebels who want to see the war go on until Assad falls,” said Richard Gowan, associate director of New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. “It’s likely that the same critics will target Brahimi, making his work harder.”
Annan “blew his credibility” by failing to enforce deadlines in his peace plan while al-Assad forces stepped up shelling of protest cities, according to Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“Brahimi has an opportunity to regain UN credibility, but he is operating under the constraint of a divided UN Security Council,” Tabler added.
The Security Council has maintained its backing for Annan’s six point plan, which calls for an end to violence as a key step to starting a political transition. The international powers also signed up for an accord agreed at a Geneva meeting with Annan on June 30 that called for a transitional government.
However, Brahimi has made no firm commitment to keep to them.
“I have a tool box and there are several useful tools that are in that tool box that I can use when and if possible,” Brahimi’s spokesman quoted him as saying.
“Brahimi is very well respected around the UN and has wisely avoided premature announcements about his plans, but the chances for a diplomatic solution through the UN are even lower than they were when Annan started work in the spring,” Gowan said.
“Brahimi’s best opportunity to mediate will come if and when the military situation gets decisively worse for Assad,” he added. “That could persuade Russia and China to take a more flexible approach at the UN.”
“The impression is that both sides are for the moment determined to fight until the end,” French UN envoy Gerard Araud said. “So a political process is possible only when one or both parties decide that it is necessary to find a political process. For the moment, to be frank, there is no signal of that.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia