UN sees new opportunity to negotiate end to conflict in Syria

The UN envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Thursday (04.27.2023) asked all parties for a new diplomatic effort to try to close the conflict in Syria by taking advantage of the “opportunity” created by recent events such as the talks between Turkey, Russia, Iran and the government of Bashar al-Assad.

“We are at a potentially important juncture,” said Pedersen, referring to that meeting held this Tuesday in Moscow and also to the rapprochement of various Arab countries with the Damascus regime.

In a speech before the United Nations Security Council, the diplomat considered that these latest moves could help unblock the political process in Syria, which has been virtually paralyzed for years despite repeated UN attempts to make progress.

However, warned that a participation will be necessary broader if real results are to be achieved and made it clear that no single group of countries or actors can solve all the problems in Syria.

Pedersen offered to try to facilitate that process and said that he will continue his contacts with the government and the opposition, to try to make progress and if it is possible to reunite the committee designed for the two parties to negotiate a reform of the Syrian Constitution, as a step to end the conflict.

After several years of relative calm and a deadlock at the military level, in recent months Al Asad has begun to recover relations with some governments in the region that had broken with him at the start of the war.

Russia, its main ally, highlighted this “natural process of return from Syria to the Arab family” and assured that, with the support of the region, a “normalization of relations between Damascus and Ankara” is underway.

“We are going to continue to do everything possible to ensure that long-term normalization is achieved in Syria,” said Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzia, whose country hosted the latest talks.

Türkiye, whose relations with Al Asad broke up in 2011 with the outbreak of the civil war and which has backed opposition groups, currently controls parts of northern Syria as a result of operations against Kurdish militias.