Kofi Annan says Syria efforts failing

Beirut – Special UN envoy Kofi Annan acknowledged in an interview published on Saturday that the international community’s efforts to find a political solution to the escalating violence in Syria have failed. Annan also said that more attention needed to be paid to the role of long-time Syrian ally Iran, and that countries supporting military actors in the conflict were making the situation worse.

“The evidence shows that we have not succeeded,” he told the French daily Le Monde.

Annan, the special envoy for the United Nations and the Arab League, is the architect of the most prominent international plan to end the crisis in Syria, which activists say has killed more than 14 000 people since March, 2011.

His six-point plan was to begin with a ceasefire in mid-April between government forces and rebels seeking to topple the regime of President Bashar Assad. But the truce never took hold, and now the almost 300 UN observers sent to monitor the ceasefire are confined to their hotels because of the escalating violence.

Activists reported more than 50 people killed on Saturday alone, after some 800 people last week.

 

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Tagged Beirut Special, Kofi Annan, Le Monde, President Bashar Assad, Syria, UN