UN is urged to unite and pull Syria back from brink

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged Syria’s President Bashar Assad to end his regime’s bloody crackdown and appealed to the UN Security Council to unite and help the country “pull back from the brink of a deeper catastrophe”.
By The Newsroom
Published 12th Mar 2012, 20:38 GMT

The UN Secretary General led a ministerial debate in the council on challenges from the Arab Spring.

On the sidelines, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held bilateral talks.

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Russia, Syria’s most powerful ally, and China have vetoed two US and European-backed Security Council resolutions which would have condemned President Assad’s bloody crackdown, saying they were unbalanced because they demanded only the government stop attacks, not the opposition. Moscow accused Western powers of backing the rebels.

Mr Lavrov had had a tense meeting with Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo before flying to New York. They have endorsed a plan for Mr Assad to hand power to his vice president, but the Russians are opposed to any resolution endorsing regime change.

In the end, the Arab League and Mr Lavrov agreed on several points that could serve as the basis for a future Security Council resolution: an immediate cease-fire, a clause preventing foreign intervention, assurances about humanitarian aid and an endorsement of the mission of special envoy to Syria, former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Russia to join diplomatic efforts to end the violence as he warned the United Nations had failed in its duty.

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“I am glad that the Russian foreign minister will be there, as well as Hillary Clinton and many other foreign ministers. We have to have some straight talking about it as well as negotiations.

“We want agreement on a United Nations Security Council resolution,” he said.

In other diplomatic efforts, the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators – the UN, US, European Union and Russia – met behind closed doors on the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Ban told the council afterwards that “the peace process continues to stagnate” and appealed to the Palestinians and Israelis “to show the courage and vision needed to reach a historic agreement.”

War correspondent for the Sunday Times Marie Colvin, 56, has been buried in Oyster Bay, Long Island, where she first decided to become a reporter. She died in the shelling of Homs.

Opinion: Page 13.

Related topics:SyriaWilliam Hague