Brahimi resigns Syria U.N.-Arab post

As 2nd envoy for conflict gives up, France says chemical weapons used 14 times

United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, seen in this Jan. 27 file photo, resigned Tuesday as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy on Syria after a nearly two-year effort that failed to bring peace to the war-ravaged country.

United Nations mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, seen in this Jan. 27 file photo, resigned Tuesday as the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy on Syria after a nearly two-year effort that failed to bring peace to the war-ravaged country.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

UNITED NATIONS -- Lakhdar Brahimi resigned Tuesday as the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria after trying for nearly two years to overcome "almost impossible odds" to end a civil war that has claimed more than 150,000 lives, the U.N. chief announced Tuesday.

With Brahimi at his side, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon blamed the failure of the peace effort on the warring parties, but especially the Syrian government. He also blamed the deeply divided Security Council and countries with influence on the fighting sides. Ban pledged to keep working to achieve peace and urged all involved to rethink what they can do to give hope to the Syrian people.

Brahimi will step down May 31. Ban said he will appoint a successor but gave no timetable.

Brahimi "faced almost impossible odds with the Syrian nation, Middle Eastern region, and wider international community that have been hopelessly divided in their approaches to ending the conflict," Ban said. "He has persevered with great patience and skill."

Brahimi is the second U.N.-Arab envoy to quit after failing to achieve a breakthrough in the more than 3-year-old conflict between the regime of President Bashar Assad and rebel groups.

When Brahimi took over from his longtime friend, former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, he said it would be "an extremely complicated and very, very difficult mission." On Tuesday, he indicated he could see no end in the near future to the bloodshed.

"I'm sure that the crisis will end -- but the question is how many more dead? How much more destruction?" Brahimi said. "It's very sad that I leave this position and leave Syria behind in such a bad state."

Brahimi, 80, is a former Algerian foreign minister and longtime U.N. diplomat and troubleshooter in hot spots from Afghanistan to Iraq. He managed to get government officials and opposition to two rounds of peace talks in Geneva, but they ended without an agreement.

He had been working behind the scenes to restart the Geneva negotiations, but that effort was all but doomed when Assad's government announced that a presidential election would be held June 3. The Geneva talks were intended to lead to a transitional government, and with an election on the horizon both Brahimi and Ban have indicated that it would be impossible to get the opposition to new negotiations.

"I regret that the parties, especially the government, have proven so reluctant to take advantage of that opportunity to end the country's profound misery," Ban said. "I renew my appeal to them to show the wisdom and the sense of responsibility that could allow a way out of this nightmare."

The Syrian conflict started as largely peaceful protests against Assad's rule in 2011. It turned into a civil war after some opposition supporters took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown. Over the past year, the fighting has taken increasingly sectarian overtones, pitting largely Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad's government that is dominated by Alawites, a sect of Shiite Islam.

Activists say more than 150,000 have been killed in the fighting.

Meanwhile, New-York based Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that it has strong evidence that Syrian army helicopters dropped bombs carrying chlorine gas on three rebel-held towns last month.

The report by the international human-rights group adds to concerns that chemical weapons are still being used in Syria, eight months after a chemical attack killed hundreds of civilians in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

The Syrian government did not immediately comment on the claims. It has accused rebels of using chlorine gas in the past.

France's foreign minister on Tuesday also accused Assad's government of attacking its people with chemical weapons at least 14 times since last October, including as recently as a few weeks ago.

At a Washington news conference, top French diplomat Laurent Fabius cited "credible witnesses" to the attacks, which he said included the use of chlorine gas. He said it has been difficult to gather definitive proof because chlorine gas generally evaporates too quickly to collect samples.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which monitors the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, sent a team to Syria this month to investigate the chlorine claims. Its spokesman, Michael Luhan, declined to comment on the Human Rights Watch report.

Under an agreement struck last summer, Assad was supposed to dismantle his government's stockpile of chemical weapons by June 30. Officials believe that 92 percent of the stockpile has been shipped out of Syria to be destroyed at sea.

But Fabius said Syrian facilities that produce chemical weapons have not been destroyed, and he accused Assad's government of not being fully forthcoming with the West about its continued ability to use toxic chemicals against opponents.

Also Tuesday, French police arrested six people in northeastern France in a roundup of suspected jihadists who recently traveled to fight in Syria's civil war, the interior ministry said.

The sweep around dawn in Strasbourg happened weeks after authorities announced a new push to prevent French militants from traveling to Syria, part of measures by many European governments to reduce the appeal of jihad.

Information for this article was contributed by Diaa Hadid, Ryan Lucas, Menelaos Hadjicostis, Lara Jakes, Jamey Keaten and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/14/2014