United Nations envoy sees ‘step’ toward Syria solution

United Nations envoy sees ‘step’ toward Syria solution

DAMASCUS (AFP): UN special envoy Geir Pedersen calls for a “step for step” approach in finding a political solution to Syria’s conflict, following his tour of Europe, the US, and Arab states.
Several rounds of United Nations-brokered negotiations in Geneva since 2019 between the government and opposition aimed at forging a new constitution have so far failed.
“I think there is a possibility now to start to explore what I call ‘a step for step’ approach, where you put on the table steps that is defined with precisions, that is verifiable, that hopefully can start to build some trust,” he says, after talks in Damascus with Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.
“My message is that there is another possibility to start to explore possible avenues, to start to move forward on this process,” he tells journalists.
Pedersen has toured all the main foreign players with a stake in Syria’s conflict. With major fighting having subsided since 2020, Damascus has made inroads into easing its international isolation, especially with fellow Arab states.
“I think we should now analyze not only the Arabs but also the American position, the Europeans, the Turkish, the Russians, the Iranians,” UN envoy says.
The war in Syria is estimated to have killed nearly half a million people and displaced millions more, since it began with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011.
It quickly spiraled into a complex conflict that pulled in numerous actors, including jihadist groups and foreign powers.
Throughout the civil war, the UN has been striving to nurture a political resolution.
Covert US army unit tasked with fighting IS repeatedly killed civilians: The US military covered up a covert army cell that repeatedly killed Syrian civilians during the campaign against Islamic State, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
The unit — called Talon Anvil — struck convoys, car bombs, command centers, and squads of enemy fighters, when it operated between 2014 and 2019, the report said. Current and former American military and intelligence officials told the newspaper that the covert US army cell repeatedly killed civilians as collateral damage in its operations in Syria.

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