The UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, warned that the current situation in Syria is the worst in four years, calling for protection of Syrian civilians.
Speaking at the 54th Munich Security Conference on Sunday, de Mistura said that he was very concerned about the ongoing military operations in Syria.
De Mistura appealed to the influential countries in Syria to resort to political solutions, adding that “the biggest danger in Syria at the moment is fragmentation.” The unity of Syria must be preserved to avoid the process of fragmentation into smaller parts, the so-called Balkanization, in the Middle East, he stressed.
The UN official said there was no alternative to political solutions, which would lead to presidential and parliamentary elections under the UN supervision.
The UN envoy stressed that the UN-led Geneva process is the only venue to laying the foundations of a new constitution in Syria.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Monday said that “history will record failure to stop the fighting and will lay the blame on those responsible.”
The Syrian Coalition said that the Syrian people have been disappointed by the failure of the UN Security Council to agree on a temporary truce in Syria that is needed to put an end to the killings and crimes being committed by Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime. He noted that that these crimes have sharply increased following the failure of the Sochi Conference.
Many areas across Syria are witnessing a serious military escalation, particularly in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta and Idlib province. Rights groups have warned of the collapse of the ‘de-escalation zones agreement’ as hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded in recent weeks.
Local monitoring groups confirmed that the Assad regime and its allies are using internationally banned indiscriminate weapons in the bombardment of populated areas, adding that regime forces used chlorine gas several times in attacks on rebel-held areas. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
