British Prime Minister David Cameron is to tell the UN that peace in Syria is impossible while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad remains in power, officials said.
Cameron yesterday was to fly out to the UN in New York as Western diplomats scramble to cobble together a diplomatic strategy to end the civil war in Syria.
British officials say attempts to resolve the four-year conflict have been made more difficult by Russia’s recent military support for the al-Assad regime.
Photo: Bloomberg
Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) are set to attend the 70th anniversary meeting of the UN General Assembly.
Moscow has recently deployed troops and warplanes to Syria, combined with new arms deliveries to al-Assad’s forces taking on the Islamic State group that now controls parts of Syria and Iraq.
“Our view is very clear: ISIL and al-Assad are both the enemies of the Syrian people,” a senior British official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the Islamic State by one of the numerous acronyms it is identified by. “The prime minister’s view is still very clearly that in the endgame you need a different leader to build a peaceful and inclusive Syria.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry and his European counterparts reached out to traditional foe Iran on Saturday on the sidelines of the UN gathering.
Iran, like Russia, backs al-Assad, who is seen by Washington as the instigator of the civil war that has left half of Syria in the Islamic State’s hands.
Cameron was to use a series of one-to-one meetings with other leaders, including Obama, to press the case that a peaceful solution would ultimately require different leadership in Syria, around which the majority can unite.
However, Britain has stressed that al-Assad would not necessarily have to go immediately as part of any peace deal.
“There has always been the idea that there will be a political transition and there are differing views between members of the international community ... [on] what the steps are in the process,” a senior British official said. “That is where there is more discussion ongoing.”
Cameron was to stress that the migrant crisis in Europe could spur world powers into a new push to end the conflict in Syria.
“Events over the last few months have shifted the dynamic and added to the urgency of finding a political solution. We want to seize that opportunity to inject some momentum into the process,” the senior British official said.
The official said the discussions were in their infancy and that the format of any final settlement was not yet clear.
“There does need to be more thinking in capitals on what it would be,” the official said. “This is complex and challenging, and at the moment we are still trying to work out and agree what that solution might be.”
Following his trip to the UN, Cameron is to visit Jamaica and Grenada before returning to Britain.
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