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Security Council Tackles Syrian Crisis in Presence of World Leaders | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Gerard van Bohemen, the permanent representative of New Zealand to the U.N.


Security Council Tackles Syrian Crisis in Presence of World Leaders

by | Sep 5, 2016 | Middle East |

Security Council Tackles Syrian Crisis in Presence of World Leaders

New York-The U.N. Security Council will hold later this September a meeting on Syria coinciding with the presence of world leaders, including Barack Obama, who will deliver his last speech before the General Assembly as the President of the United States.

New Zealand’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, whose country holds the council presidency, said that the Security Council will hold a high-level meeting on September 21 to take stock of the Syrian conflict and discuss prospects for ending the fighting, which is now in its sixth year.

Van Bohemen said that members are expected to discuss the “political initiative” that U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura is preparing to help revive the stalled Syria peace talks.

He said that the council session on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial meetings will be chaired by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, who has invited leaders of the 14 other council nations to attend.

For his part, the U.N. envoy for Syria said he is preparing “a quite clear political initiative” to help revive the stalled Syria peace talks aimed at resolving the country’s devastating civil war.

Syria’s U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said the “important” initiative will come ahead of a planned Sept. 21 meeting on Syria during the U.N. General Assembly ministerial meeting in New York.

De Mistura also said on Thursday that he would provide details in the week before the gathering “to help the General Assembly look the Syria problem straight in the eye.”

Moreover, the Security Council will hold a consultation session on the usage of chemical weapons, especially after the latest report issued by the United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, between the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations.

The report provides the findings, assessments and conclusions of the Mechanism’s Leadership Panel regarding those behind the use of chemicals as weapons in Syria.

Lastly, the Leadership Panel found insufficient evidence to identify to the greatest extent feasible those involved in the use of chemicals as weapons in another three cases. They are: Kafr Zita, Qmenas and Binnish.