The United Nations’ Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, joins Mehdi Unfiltered to discuss the country’s new leadership, the path forward, and the UN’s role in it all. Addressing the latest attacks by Israel on sites within Syria, as well as the Israeli military incursion into the buffer zone next to the occupied Golan Heights, Pedersen tells Mehdi that these are illegal under international law.
“The message to Israel is that this needs to stop. What we are seeing in the Golan is the violation of the 1974 agreement. This is a very serious issue.”
Given the UN has listed the Nusra Front as a proscribed terrorist organization, and given Abu Muhammed al-Jolani and his Nusra Front spin-off Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive against Assad and now controls much of the country, Mehdi asks Pedersen about the UN’s approach towards HTS going forward.
“This creates obviously challenges and I have been very open when it comes to this… The messaging coming out so far has been good… What we now need to see when they are in Damascus, and of course, they are not alone in Damascus, is that this vision is actually implemented.”
A precursor to opening a political pathway for such groups will of course be changing their “terrorist’ designations, something that Pedersen says he is willing to take to the UN Security Council.
“My message to the Security Council will be, yes, it's time to have a deeper look at this and see if it's possible to delist. But as I said, only if these things happen.”
Given Pedersen’s six years as Special Envoy for Syria, Mehdi also asks about the UN’s role over the last 14 years.
“We all failed the Syrian people,” Pedersen responds “and the United Nations, for many, will be the face of that, and we have to take responsibility for that.”
Watch the full interview above to hear why Pedersen is cautious in his hope for Syria, and the steps he believes need to be taken to see “Syria developing now, in the next days, weeks, months and years ahead of us.”
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In case you missed it, here is Zeteo’s interview with a former child prisoner of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison:
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