UN envoy urges Syria to start truce during Eid

AP

BEIRUT THE international envoy to the Syrian conflict on Wednesday called on President Bashar al Assad’s regime to take the lead in a cease-fire during a major Muslim holiday later this month, calling it a ‘microscopic’ step toward ending a crisis that he said could consume the whole region.

Lakhdar Brahimi told reporters in Beirut on Wednesday that if the government initiates the cease-fire, everyone he has talked to on the rebel side has said they also will observe the truce.

Brahimi’s push to get Assad and rebels seeking to topple him to stop fighting for the four-day Eid al-Adha feast set to begin October 26 reflects how little progress international diplomacy has made in stopping 19 months of deadly violence in Syria.

Unlike his predecessor as joint UN-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, Brahimi has said he has no grand plan to solve Syria’s crisis. Instead, he presented the truce as a ‘microscopic’ step that would lessen Syrian sorrow temporarily and could be the basis for a longer truce.

“The Syrian people are burying hundreds of people each day, so if they bury fewer people during the days of the holiday, this could be the start of Syria’s return from the dangerous situation that it has slipped and is continuing to slip toward,” he said.

Even if the rebels and regime agree, both in the past have verbally signed on to ceasefires only to then blatantly disregard them. And before Brahimi spoke, Syria’s government dismissed the plan, saying the rebels lack a unified leadership to sign the truce.

“There is the state, represented by the government and the army on one front, but who is on the other front?” asked an editorial in the Al-Thawra daily.

The scores of rebel units fighting a brutal civil war against the regime have no unified leadership, and many don’t communicate with each other.

Brahimi spoke following meetings with top Lebanese officials as part of a regional tour. He said all countries must work to stop Syria’s civil by halting arms shipments so the conflict doesn’t spread.

“These countries need to realise, as we heard today in Lebanon, that it is not possible that this crisis will stay inside Syrian border forever,” he said.

“Either it has to be taken care of or it will spread and spill over and consume everything.” Rebel leaders were not immediately available for comment on the proposed truce.

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