Annan slams UN for not backing proposals

DHAKA: World powers traded blame on Friday after Kofi Annan quit as international peace envoy to Syria, complaining that his initiative to end the bloodshed there never received the support it deserved.

As Syria`s government deployed fighter jets against rebels armed with tanks around the commercial capital Aleppo, the outgoing UNArab League envoy voiced regret at the "increasing militarization" of the nearly 17-month conflict.

The former UN secretary general hit out at "continuous finger-pointing and name-calling" at the UN Security Council, which he said had prevented coordinated action to stop the violence.

"I did not receive all the support that the cause deserved ," Annan told a hastily arranged news conference in Geneva. "You have to understand : as an envoy, I can`t want peace more than the protagonists, the Security Council or the international community for that matter.

"The increasing militarization on the ground and the lack of unanimity in the Security Council fundamentally changed my role." But Annan predicted that President Bashar al-Assad would go "sooner or later" , and did not rule out his successor having more luck or success.

Writing in the Financial Times, Annan called on Moscow and Washington to shoulder responsibility for saving Syria from civil war. He stressed that Western military intervention would not deliver success on its own and that a political solution which was not comprehensive was doomed to fail.

Source: TOI

BDST: 0923 HRS, AUG 04, 2012
RS