Briefing to the Security Council by the UN Special Envoy for Syria
Mr. President [Amb. Elio Rosselli of Uruguay], Dear colleagues,
1. When I briefed you in April, we together saw two paths ahead: either international escalation and internal escalation and deeper intra-Syrian conflict; or international dialogue, cooperation on de-escalating and de-escalating the tensions and moving on the political track even by small steps, but moving. So far, there are signs that we have taken, together, the last course. Our common job, now, is to turn that into something truly more meaningful, both on the ground and on the political track.
2. In the beginning of May, I attended the high-level Astana meeting to stress that any attempt to de-escalate violence is indeed what the Syrians want, and it is indeed vital in itself, and can mutually support Geneva, as Geneva mutually support Astana. In Astana, my team gave technical support to the ceasefire guarantors – Russia, Turkey, and Iran – and I was active in political consultations with all of them and with the Syrians parties, and with Jordan and the United States who were present as observers.
3. Astana produced, in my modest opinion, a promising step: a memorandum between the three guarantors on the creation of de-escalation zones. The reports which I received so far indicate a significant drop in violence, including in aerial bombardment, in most of the areas identified by the memorandum. UN contacts on the ground have described tangible change: clear skies and areas quickly come back to life, that is typical of Syrian reality, whenever there is a moment of peace, or at least of the stopping of the fighting, they take their own future and their present in hand. Including markets started functioning in thoses locations. We welcome this and the efforts of the Astana guarantors should be praised because we want them to succeed. And I thank the Kazakh Government for ably hosting the Astana meetings.
4. That’s the good news. There is also not-so-good news. Despite the nationwide ceasefire announced last December, and the de-escalation zones now created to deepen the effort, we have received reports of on-going hostilities and even bombardment, between the government and armed opposition groups, in areas such as Hama, Homs, and Damascus. Some of these areas appear to be outside of the current de-escalation zones, however as you know, though their precise ambit will only become clear when the guarantors complete what is an extremely important process, the so-called mapping. These clashes resulted in another evacuation of armed opposition fighters and civilians from areas of Eastern Damascus city (Barzeh and Qaboun). Separately, following the memorandum, we saw some government attacks on armed opposition groups who were otherwise engaged in fighting Daesh, in the desert near Homs and al-Sweida.
5. While we have registered that the government of Syria has made some significant advances against Daesh, we also note, with great concern, the continued activities of Security Council-listed terrorist groups. We condemn, in particular, the ISIL attack on civilians in rural Salamiya last week on a very important community which has been there for hundreds of years, and the ISIL assault on Deir-ez-Zor city on-going today. These incidents show that, despite losing further territory this month, ISIL still has the capacity to cause great harm.
6. We are also aware of the reports that the anti-ISIL coalition carried out airstrikes on armed convoy allegedly composed of forces of the Syrian Government and its allies in the desert East of Homs.
7. I am also encouraged by recent Government of Syria and AOG agreements which are resulting in the release of detainees and abducted.
8. These facts remind us that there are still important details to clarify to ensure full implementation of the Astana memorandum by all parties. We therefore urge together the ceasefire guarantors to address those details quickly, diligently and fairly, within the timeframe stipulated by themselves in the memorandum. All relevant international actors, specifically regional ones, as well as the ISSG Co-Chairs, have a particular interest in this regard. The UN remains ready to provide its technical expertise. Our goal is not just de-escalation but actually at least on the military side the realization of the nationwide ceasefire, and thus we have a common interest in ensuring that no party of the conflict takes advantage of any ambiguities still taking place and existing in the memorandum in order to make sure the memorandum can be implemented fully.
9. We urge the parties, the Astana guarantors, and those who have influence on the parties, to take steps to ensure rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to the more than 4.5 million people in need in hard-to-reach and besieged areas. When there is a reduction of violence, that should be the first consequence, the first positive effect. We haven’t seen enough of that. The UN stands ready to respond to any opportunity for increased humanitarian access, based on needs of the people and in line with international humanitarian law.
10. Finally, on Astana, we were encouraged to note that the guarantors seriously engaged in discussions on two additional important – for us and for the Syrians - subjects: detainees, abductees and missing persons; and humanitarian demining. Indeed, on detainees, they finalized at the technical level an agreement on a process for addressing the issue, in which the UN would be closely involved and we are ready and willing to do so. I have urged the Astana guarantors to formally confirm as soon as possible that technical agreement without delay. Meanwhile, the UN Mine Action Service, based in New York, which was part of the UN team in Astana, is indeed ready to do its part to advance an effective approach to humanitarian demining in Syria.
Mr. President,
11. In the immediate aftermath of Astana, I invited the parties of the Intra-Syrian talks to a 6th round in Geneva, and all came, meeting in proximity format. The round was kept short so as to proceed in a focussed manner. Four days, but intense, including one case of night discussions.
12. In the previous round, the parties had already begun to engage in substance, across all four baskets of the agenda that this Council, yourself, had approved after the fourth round. They also had in the previous case, showed that the process is now facing fewer obstacles related to possible walk-outs, procedural objections, long statements attacking each other or even the questioning of the other side’s legitimacy. We strongly insisted on that and we got that. There are, of course, major gaps, still, and I don’t deny it, between the parties. But we had also seen a deepening of the process across the baskets and a greater understanding of what is required if the parties are to succeed in negotiating a framework for a transitional political agreement that safeguards the sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and independence of Syria, based on the Geneva Communique and SCR 2254, adopted by all of you.
13. I assessed that the parties needed to be ready to roll up their sleeves, we had only four days and had to make use of it, and go even deeper. Specifically, I saw an opportunity and a need to increase focused thought and work at the constitutional and legal dimensions as the talks proceed, as the talks proceed. Everything is touched by that, every question which comes out as either a constitutional or a legal aspect. Why not going deeper? Why not preparing before that? I think we can all agree that no stakeholder – Syrian, regional or international - will accept any constitutional, or legal, or institutional vacuum in Syria before, during, or after any negotiated transitional political process. So at least, we all I believe agreed etc. Most importantly, that process needed to be owned by the Syrians. They are the ones who should be drafting their constitution. We can help in preparing the ground for it.
14. Therefore, to this end, I informed the parties that I intended to establish a technical consultative process to move more deeply and examine more deeply relevant constitutional and legal issues raised within the formal sessions. In other words, sessions more informal where we can go a little bit deeper, especially when the subject can have common ground in order to prepare better for the time there will be a peace conference, and most of these issues could have been more or less - if not sorted out, at least prepared. I shared, therefore, initial ideas with participants in the talks, sketching out a possible vision for this type of approach. This stimulated intense and indeed valuable discussions and many constructive, oral and written, observations from the parties. We met the sides, days and evening, to answer their queries, and urged them to indicate the basis of their own participation in the expert consultative process. This enabled us to move beyond the paper and the initial set of ideas we had prepared and focus on the real deliverable: establishing a consultative process, at the technical level, as an additional, effective new tool and piece of architecture in the intra-Syrian talks process.
15. Participants wasted no time and agreed to two separate technical meetings with experts from my own team on the 18 May – one with experts from the Government who until then have been hesitating about entering into some type of expert groups, and one with experts from the delegation of the Syrian opposition as announced on 11 February. Two further technical expert meetings were also held under the consultative process on 19 May with the Cairo and Moscow platforms, separately. The meetings were business-like, constructive and informative. We can now say that the process is up and running and it has already shown its potential.
16. We also had constructive discussions on finding a formula by which experts from the Cairo and Moscow platforms might join at least the expert meetings of the Syrian opposition delegation, the one announced on 11 February. Intensive conversations took place on this within the main opposition and between it and the other platforms, and we should encourage them to make this a reality during the next round. This would send an important new signal of opposition unity. As you know, the opposition mentioned by the Security Council indicate that I should be inviting the HNC, the Cairo and the Moscow Platform and we all have been hoping this, thinking that, one day, at least on some technical areas, this could be the beginning of having a common umbrella of ideas. It might be a step towards a common understanding initially on some of the issues, and international and regional actors like yourselves, in my opinion should do everything they can to support this so we do have a unified opposition as soon as possible. And while it is not an immediate prospect, which we do realise that we cannot see it happening immediately, we hope this would take us closer to the possibility for direct negotiations between government and opposition.
17. I would like to thank, once again, the Women’s Advisory Board (WAB) who provided valuable feedback on the UN’s proposal on a technical consultation process, in fact they came up with many valid ideas that we were able to use, as well as timely and constructive suggestions on the process at large, with a view to making it as inclusive as possible for all Syrians, men and women alike. Separately, I am today starting, in two hours time, engagement in a series of in-depth consultations with representatives of Syrian civil society – they are important, particularly when we get to a point where we are now, and those consultations which have already provided extremely insightful and practical advice.
18. Finally, I would like to acknowledge with appreciation the support of members of this Council, those who were present and active here in Geneva, the International Syria Support Group, and other countries that dispatched their senior officials or Syria envoys in Geneva during the talks. Their close involvement and efforts, in consulting with me and engaging the sides in order to make them actually closer to a possible formula, remain an invaluable tool of diplomatic leverage for my own mediation. And I also took welcome note of the fact that, no matter what side of the conflict each of the groups have been closer too, these players all welcomed a proactive United Nations making concrete proposals to the parties, and supporting these proposals.
19. Before closing, please let me add a few important points of clarification on the expert meetings, to be clear about what they are, and what they are not. And importantly, what the link with the four baskets is and could be:
20. First: these expert meetings are not intended to replace the formal negotiations. This process is intended to support the four baskets and the principle of parallelism, which remain the focus and agenda of the talks. We have agreed on that. The work of these experts remain fully framed within the terms of reference which we all know for the intra-Syrian talks. We were not able to go in depth on the four baskets during this round, but we did talk about important issues for both parties, and we hope to now address these further into the substance during subsequent rounds.
21. Second: our focus on constitutional and legal issues does not in any way take away the Syrian people’s right to draft and determine their constitutional future. We are not seeking to draft a new Syrian constitution in Geneva, or in Astana or anywhere else, I want to believe. We are laying foundations for the time when the Syrians can do that. But in Geneva, yes, the UN is ready to help in preparing the ground for that because there is a lot of homework to be done.
22. Third, any framework agreement that is legally and constitutionally solid will require important technical underpinnings and details. We hope that experts can work through those details together or separately,, continuously. In this regard, I have strongly encouraged the experts to have meetings in-between rounds of the Geneva talks, and not just during the talks. Although, if anyone wants to be coming during the talks, he or she is welcome. The experts will not take any decisions but rather propose options, solid options, well-thought options, well discussed option, to the official participants in the formal talks.
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23. Naturally, there is still a great deal of work to be done. We are aware that important gaps remain between the parties on major issues. But having established an agenda, and gone into substance of all baskets, we now have taken a new further step in preparing the ground for a real negotiation, which I hope will be possible before too long. For the first time, we received the consent of all parties to engage with us on an expert concrete level. I am also pleased that all parties were receptive to the UN convening a 7th round, which we intend to target sometime in June.
Mr. President,
24. The United Nations has in Geneva begun to help the Syrian parties put building blocks in place for a real negotiation on a real political solution, while we hope Astana will contribute to making sure that the de-escalation works. And several important meetings of key international and regional leaders in recent weeks have produced encouraging statements on the need to find a political solution to Syria. And we are, with your help and the Secretary-General guidance, doing our part to incrementally find a political agreed framework as per resolution 2254, thank you.