Frustrated from the AL, Ibrahimi to Resign

Local Editor

International peace envoy to Syria al-Akhdar Ibrahimi is on the verge of quitting amid growing frustration at deadlocked international efforts to end the worsening conflict, diplomats said Wednesday.

Ibrahimi is "hitching to resign but being persuaded to hang on for a few more days," said one UN Security Council diplomat. "He has told everyone that he wants to leave, there is little hope that he will stay," an Arab diplomat at the United Nations told AFP.

The 79-year-old former Algerian foreign minister was named in place of former UN leader Kofi Annan as the international envoy on August 17 last year. He recognized at the time that he faced an uphill battle.

Like Annan, before him, Ibrahimi has been increasingly frustrated at the failure of the major powers to agree to a plan on ways to end the two-year-old conflict.
However, the Arab League decision to recognize the opposition Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate government of Syria was the final straw for the veteran UN troubleshooter, diplomats said.

"He wants to resign because he feels that the Arab League has taken themselves in a direction which is a bit different from the UN," said the Security Council diplomat.

Ban, al-Arabi [The Head of the AL]and all five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - want Ibrahimi to stay, diplomats said.

The envoy on Monday met in Washington US Secretary of State John Kerry, who sought to convince him to stay, diplomats said. But it was not clear whether Kerry made any promises of efforts to reinvigorate political efforts to end the conflict.

"We applaud Mr. Brahimi's efforts to advance a political solution to the conflict in Syria," said State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell, before the meeting. "We reiterate our support for his mission despite the challenging circumstances."
"This is somebody who has, for many months, labored in the very noble cause of trying to help peace in Syria," the spokesman added.

"If Ibrahimi resigns soon, it will come at a very bad moment for the United States," said Richard Gowan of New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org