Int’l envoy warns of "hell" in Syria if no deal is struck

PanARMENIAN.Net - The international mediator seeking peace in Syria warned of "hell" if no deal is struck to end 21 months of bloodshed, but his talks in Russia capping a week of intense diplomacy brought no sign of a breakthrough, according to Reuters.

UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both said there was still a chance for a negotiated solution to the conflict, which has killed more than 44,000 people and set world powers against one another.

But Lavrov firmly repeated Russia's stance that President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a political solution, saying that such demands were "wrong" and that the opposition's refusal to talk to the government was a "dead end".

"If the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then all of us must work ceaselessly for a political process," Brahimi said. "It is difficult, it is very complicated but there is no other choice."

"The core of that political process ... is and must be the Geneva agreement," said Brahimi, who took over as the UN-Arab League envoy after Kofi Annan quit in frustration at divisions among world powers, chiefly the United States and Russia, and the failure of the Geneva accord to bring a resolution closer.

"There may be one or two little adjustments to make here and there, but it is a reasonable basis for a political process that will help the Syrian people," he said, without elaborating.

Brahimi, who met Assad and others on a five-day trip to Syria this week, is to meet senior U.S. and Russian diplomats together in the coming weeks, after two such meetings this month that produced no signs of a breakthrough.