The United Nations’ Particular Envoy to Syria has dismissed the necessity for regime change in Syria and mentioned that the nation is secure beneath President Bashar Al-Assad, seeming to verify fears by many who the UN is in favour of cooperating with Assad.
Geir Pedersen made the feedback in a gathering with Iranian Overseas Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, yesterday throughout his go to to Iran, by which the 2 mentioned the continued scenario in Syria and the trail in direction of a political resolution.
In keeping with the Tehran Occasions newspaper, the UN Envoy advised Abdollahian that Syria is at the moment secure and that no occasion is discussing or contemplating regime change within the nation. He additionally insisted on the need of sustaining Syria’s nationwide sovereignty, political stability and its territorial integrity.
Pedersen cited the presidential elections in Could final 12 months – by which Assad allegedly gained a staggering 95 per cent of the vote – as a main instance that Syria is experiencing a interval of peace after a decade of battle.
Though the UN has by no means straight supported Assad or advocated towards regime change, the Envoy’s feedback are more likely to end in outrage and backlash from Syrian dissidents and human rights activists who’ve lengthy expressed dismay that the UN and the worldwide group holds talks with the Assad regime and treats it because the sovereign authority in Syria.
READ: Has the UN simply failed in Syria, or is it complicit in the regime’s crimes?
All through the continued peace course of, nevertheless, the UN has maintained that the regime have to be talked to and negotiated with as a main participant within the nation if a political resolution is to return about.
Pedersen’s feedback additionally signify a significant shift within the narrative across the Syrian regime’s normal legitimacy, with many within the Center East restoring ties with Assad after a decade.
It marks a big distinction to the predictions that the USA and different Western nations would try to overthrow Assad and implement a coverage of regime change in Syria, a view which turned widespread after the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceable protestors initially of the Syrian revolution 2011.
The assertion that Syria is protected can also be contested, with human rights abuses persevering with to be often dedicated by the regime safety forces and intelligence companies regardless of the preventing largely having died down and nearly all of territory having been recaptured by Assad.
It comes amid rising considerations relating to the UN’s relationship with Assad and its stance on refugees’ return, notably in September when the UN was accused of trying to forcibly return Syrian refugees within the Rukban camp to regime-held territory, which it denied.
