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Kofi Annan announces resignation as UN special envoy to Syria
Outgoing special envoy for Syria and former former UN secretary-general., Kofi Annan. PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images
Kofi Annan said Thursday he will step down from his high-profile role as special envoy for Syria at the end of the month, delivering blistering criticism of world powers’ failure to unite over the country’s escalating violence.
Mr. Annan told reporters that when he accepted the job, “which some called ‘Mission Impossible’” — he wanted to help the international community, led by the UN Security Council, find a peaceful solution to the crisis. The goal was to stop the killings of civilians and human rights abuses, as well as to place Syria on a path toward political transition.
“The severity of the humanitarian costs of the conflict, and the exceptional threats posed by this crisis to international peace and security, justified the attempts to secure a peaceful transition to a political settlement, however daunting the challenge,” Mr. Annan said.
But the former UN secretary-general told reporters that he cannot go on when the New York-based, 15-nation Security Council doesn’t back his role, particularly because of the standoff between its five veto-wielding members: Russia and China on one side, the United States, Britain and France on the other.
“Things fell apart in New York,” he summed up. “The increasing militarization on the ground in Syria and the clear lack of unity in the Security Council have fundamentally changed the circumstances for the effective exercise of my role.”
Mr. Annan has served as the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria since February. He came up with a six-point peace plan to resolve the crisis in the Arab state, including a ceasefire that was supposed to take effect in mid-April.
But, despite the presence of hundreds of UN observers on the ground, the ceasefire never took hold and the violence in Syria has spread into a civil war.
