Is Lakhdar Brahimi the man for the Syria job?
We examine the hurdles facing the UN and Arab League envoy as he admits to having no plan to end the conflict.
“A danger to the world.” That is how Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, described the conflict there.
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“There is no compromise with this regime …. So we expect Brahimi to fail as others did.“ – Bassam Imadi, a former Syrian ambassador to Sweden |
Brahimi met Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, on Saturday – hoping, like others before him, to bring an end to the 18-month conflict.
He also met members of the Syrian opposition as well as Russian and Chinese diplomats.
So far, al-Assad’s forces have ignored appeals to end the fighting. And activists say as many as 27,000 people have now been killed in the country.
Only two weeks into his new role, Brahimi has a tough job ahead.
Inside Syria, with presenter David Foster, discusses the hurdles facing Lakhdar Brahimi as he starts his encounters with the Syrian leadership.
Joining the show to discuss this are guests: Bassam Imadi, a member of the Syrian National Council and a former Syrian ambassador to Sweden; David Mack, a Middle East Institute scholar and a former US ambassador; and Huseyin Bagci, a political analyst and a professor at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
| “We know [Brahimi] has a history of managing crises, not solving them. And we should not expect that he would have a plan for a solution. That’s not his way. His way will be to wait until there are changes on the ground that make the parties ready for some kind of solution and then he’ll be there to help broker it.”
David Mack, a former US ambassador |