Syria: Ten years after the start of the war, the UN still paralyzed

The UN Security Council on Tuesday failed to agree on a joint declaration on Syria, despite a call from the Organization's envoy for this country to international unity to relaunch a deadlocked political process. The text proposed by the United Kingdom aimed to reaffirm the importance of resolution 2254, adopted in 2015 and which provided for a revision of the Syrian Constitution of 2012 and the organization of elections under the supervision of the United Nations.

From this resolution, a Syrian Constitutional Committee, including representatives of the regime, the opposition and civil society, was painstakingly established in 2019 in Geneva but its last meeting at the end of January, the fifth of its kinds is completed on a failure, recognized Tuesday by the UN envoy Geir Pedersen.

He said, it was a missed opportunity and a disappointment.

During a closed-door videoconference with the Security Council, the UN official stressed that the current divisions within the international community must be bridged.

There is the need for constructive international diplomacy on Syria. Without it, it is unlikely that a constitutional path will really advance, the envoy added in a brief interview with reporters after the meeting.

Since the start of the conflict in 2011, which has left more than 380,000 dead, the case has very often opposed Westerners to Russia, the Syrian regime's main supporter, and to China, two countries which have often resorted to their right to veto to oppose the Europeans and the United States.

According to diplomats, the impossibility of reaching a consensus on a joint declaration came again Tuesday from Russia, with demands unacceptable to the West.

"The Russians are asking too much, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity, while another, also asking not to be identified, criticized Moscow for wanting to erase any idea of ​​failure for the Constitutional Committee.

De facto, throughout the day, the text of which AFP obtained several successive versions was largely watered down. Initial regrets about the lack of a start to draft constitutional reform were removed, as was a reference to a prospect of holding free and fair elections in Syria.

It was not possible to get a comment from the Russian diplomatic mission to the UN on the reasons for the Council's failure to agree on a common language.

According to diplomats, during the videoconference of the Security Council, the West were unanimous in attributing to the Syrian regime, to delaying maneuvers, the responsibility for the failure of the political process to end the conflict.

Before the Security Council, Sven Jürgenson, Ambassador of Estonia, a non-permanent member country, recalled that the Constitutional Committee did not aim to be a "debate club but to give the Syrian people a way out of a conflict of ten years.

It is clear to everyone that the Syrian government has used the meetings to delay any real reconciliation, diverting attention from other outstanding issues, he said, according to his speech released after the meeting by his services.

In a joint statement, the three members of the European Union represented on the Security Council, Estonia, France and Ireland, affirmed regret that the Syrian regime continues to oppose the process of political settlement of the conflict. We will not recognize elections that are not in accordance with the conditions established by resolution 2254.

For Geir Pedersen, besides the lack of international unity, there is among the Syrians a lack of confidence, a lack of willingness to compromise and a lack of political space to compromise as well. He said he hoped to be able to return to Damascus soon and specified that he would participate in the next meeting of the Astana group scheduled for February 15 and 16 in Sochi, Russia.

The last declaration on Syria adopted by the Security Council dates back to October 2019. It then aimed to welcome the creation of a credible, balanced and inclusive Constitutional Committee.