The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Syrian crisis

  • Syria, West hold talks on ‘Islamist’ rebels

    Western intelligence agencies have visited Damascus for talks on combating radical Islamist groups, Syria’s deputy foreign minister has told the BBC.

    Faisal Mekdad said there was a schism between Western security officials and politicians who are pressing President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

    The growth of jihadist groups among rebels fighting President Assad has caused international concern.

    Syrian government officials are due to attend peace talks in Geneva next week.

    However, the main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, has still not decided whether or not to take part.

    The BBC says the growing disarray of the opposition is frustrating the West and bolstering the confidence of the Syrian government.

    In a recent interview, Mr. Mekdad told the BBC that many Western governments had finally understood that there was no alternative to the leadership of President Assad.

    Asked if Western intelligence agencies – including British intelligence – had recently visited Damascus, he said: “I will not specify but many of them have visited Damascus, yes.”

     

  • U.S to drop Syria ‘military threat’

    The United States will drop its insistence that a United Nations resolution on Syria must be backed by military force, officials say, after strong objections from Russia.

    U.S and Russian diplomats say the two sides are edging closer to a deal on Syria’s chemical arsenal, as talks in Geneva enter a third day.

    BBC reports they are thrashing out the technical details of the disarmament process.

    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a UN report will “overwhelmingly” confirm that poison gas was used last month.

    He made no comment on who was to blame for the August 21 attack in eastern Damascus.

    But he said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had committed “many crimes against humanity,” in comments at the UN Women’s International Forum that were shown on television.

     

     

     

     

  • More than 2m have fled Syria – UN

    More than 2m have fled Syria – UN

    More than two million Syrians are now refugees, with the total going up by a million in six months, the United Nations High Commission for Refugee says.

    According to UNHCR, at least 700,000 have fled to Lebanon, and more Syrians are now displaced than any other nationality.

    France and the United States are continuing to push for military action over alleged chemical weapons use by Syrian forces.

    There are suggestions that President Barack Obama may be planning much wider action than the limited strikes that have been publicly proposed, BBC reports.

    The reports emerged as senior U.S politicians were set to speak before a congressional committee, to rally support for intervention.

    The UNHCR said in a statement on Tuesday: “Syria is haemorrhaging women, children and men who cross borders often with little more than the clothes on their backs.”

    Around half of those forced to leave are children, UN agencies estimate, with about three-quarters of them under 11.

    Just 118,000 refugee children have been able to continue in some sort of education, and only one-fifth have received some sort of counselling, with agencies warning of a “lost generation” of child refugees ill-equipped to help rebuild Syria in the future.

    Lebanon has received the highest number of refugees, even though it is the smallest of Syria’s neighbours and one of the least able to cope.

    There is now thought to be one Syrian refugee in Lebanon to roughly every six Lebanese. Jordan and Turkey have taken in the second and third highest numbers respectively.

     

     

  • UN, U.S call for political solution to end Syrian crisis

    UN scribe Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have restated that a political solution was the only solution to end the ongoing crisis in Syria.

    The duo who spoke with reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday, noted that they would step up efforts to facilitate dialogue among all parties in the Syrian conflict.

    “More than 100,000 people have been killed, and millions of people have either been displaced or have become refugees in neighbouring countries.

    “We have to bring this to an end. Military and violent actions must be stopped by all the parties and it is thus, imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible, as initiated by Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov,” the secretary-general said.

    He added that he and Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi would spare no effort to convene the meeting as soon as possible.

    The UN chief commended Kerry’s leadership and consistent engagement to revive the peace process for a two-State solution.

    He urged the leaders of Palestine and Israel to “seize this opportunity and respond positively and courageously so that the two-State solution could be realised as soon as possible.”

    In May, following talks in Moscow between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kerry, the two countries announced they would work together to find a political solution to the Syria crisis, and agreed to convene an international conference aimed at achieving this goal.

    However, a date for the conference has not yet been set and talks are continuing on the best time for it to be held, who should participate, how it should be structured and some of the questions to be discussed.

    “There is no military solution to the crisis in Syria, there is only a political solution and that will require the leadership to bring people to the negotiating table,” Kerry said, adding that he and Lavrov remain committed to make the Geneva meeting happen.

    On the Great Lakes and the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), both Mr Ban and Mr Kerry underlined the need to follow the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, and reiterated the commitment of their Special Envoys in the region to work together.

    The Framework was signed in February by 11 African leaders, and aims to end the cycles of conflict and violence in eastern DRC and to build peace in the wider region.

    Ban also thanked Kerry for the U.S. government’s support for initiatives that seek to advance sustainable development and combat climate change.