The international envoy to the Syrian conflict has called on President Bashar Assad’s regime to take the lead in a proposed cease-fire during a Muslim holiday later this month.
[vsw id=”HJb6Qs3lbrU” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]
Lakhdar Brahimi said Wednesday in Beirut that if the government takes the first step, everyone he has talked to in the opposition will also observe the truce.
Before Brahimi spoke, a Syrian state-run newspaper said the biggest barrier to proposed truce is the lack of a unified rebel leadership to agree to it.
Both Assad’s regime and rebels seeking to topple it have ignored past truce agreements.
Brahimi acknowledged that such a truce, even if respected, was a “microscopic” step toward ending 19 months of violence in Syria.
“This crisis cannot remain within Syrian borders indefinitely. Either it will be addressed or it will increase … and be all-consuming,” he said.
Brahimi has visited Sunni Muslim states which support rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad as well as Shi’ite Iran, Assad’s strongest regional ally, in his search for a political solution to Syria’s civil war.
On Sunday he appealed to Iranian leaders to support a proposal for a ceasefire to mark Eid al-Adha. Speaking in Lebanon he said Syria’s opposition had told him that any ceasefire by Assad’s forces would be reciprocated immediately.
“We heard from everyone we met in the opposition, and everyone (else) we met that, if the government stops using violence ‘We will respond to this directly’,” he told reporters.
“We hope this will be a very small step that would save the Syrian people (the bloodshed) they are going through, because they are burying hundreds of people every day,” he added.
