United Nations – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday the world should be ashamed that three years after major powers approved a blueprint in Geneva to bring peace to Syria the suffering of its people is reaching new depths and the country is “on the brink of falling apart.”
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The U.N. chief said more than 220,000 Syrians have died in the conflict, now in its fifth year, almost half the population has been forced to flee their homes, and civilians still face attacks by barrel bombs and “horrendous” human rights violations including torture and the prolonged detention of tens of thousands.
At the same time, Ban said, different parts of Syria are increasingly controlled by a patchwork of violent players including the extremist Islamic State group and the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate, and the country’s cultural heritage “is under assault.”
“It is time to find an exit from this madness,” Ban said. “The international community, and in particular the Security Council, cannot afford to waste any further time in ending the cycle of violence.”
The secretary-general issued the statement on the third anniversary of the June 30, 2012 agreement in Geneva on a roadmap to peace in Syria. The plan, approved by the Action Group for Syria, calls for a political process that would start with the establishment of a transitional governing body for Syria vested with full executive powers and end with elections.
The Action Group included representatives of the U.N., Arab League, European Union, Turkey, and all five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain.
Ban appealed “in the strongest possible terms” to the international community to work with his special envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to implement the Geneva agreement “before further irreparable damage is done to Syria, its people and the region.”
While there was unanimous agreement for the Geneva communique, Russia and China, close allies of the Syrian government, vetoed a Security Council resolution supporting the document weeks later because it threatened to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad if the fighting didn’t end. Beijing and Moscow had previously vetoed two other resolutions for similar reasons — and the division in the Security Council remains to this day.
De Mistura has spent several months meeting individually with all parties, including Assad, on a possible way forward. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said de Mistura will come to U.N. headquarters on July 7 for a round of meetings with Ban, U.N. officials and eventually the Security Council to discuss his recommendations for a way ahead.
the ENTIRE WORLD should be ashamed for letting ISIS get this far and MURDER so many INNOCENT CHILDREN, WOMEN & MEN
If Israel had done that we would never hear the end of it. If Assad does it, it’s fine.
The world doesn’t care as Israel is not involved
No the UN should be ashamed of themselves. But what else did you expect from this corrupt anti semetic organization?
This is what Obama created with his Arab Spring
This is a direct result of the inaffectivness of the UN to stand up against putin, he was the only one suppoting assad in the beginning, and that’s the only reason america didn’t go in, but who knows, removing assad might have left a vacume for other extremist to take control,
The U.N. has no power to function .It should be closed permanently The members could meet at some club to discuss whatever they think is relative to the world situation over some drinks and shake hands and go home.
Where was the world in 1945????????????????????????????????????????
The UN can only blame itself. If it, along with the entire world put even half as much time, effort, and money into resolving that confict as it spends trying to condemn Israel, they may have solved the problem nowl
The UN is to blame. They’re blaming ‘the world’? Why was the UN created? To pass resolutions against Israel? Psychopaths.
The only ones responsibly for all this suffering are the muslims themselfs and no one else its a no brainer,and they are the only ones to be ashamed of their own .behaviour.