The United Nations hosted a summit in Geneva to broker a plan for peace and the establishment of a unified transitional government in Syria, where an uprising has killed more than 14,000 people in sixteen months. “The way things have been going thus far—we are not helping anyone,” said U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who drafted the negotiating text. “Let us break this trend and start being of some use.” Russia rejected wording that expressly prohibited Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from retaining power, and the final accord allowed for Assad’s regime to participate in the transitional government. “The country has been destroyed,” said Syrian opposition figure Haitham Maleh, “and they want us then to sit with the killer?”
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
Weekly Review
The United Nations hosted a summit in Geneva to broker a plan for peace and the establishment of a unified transitional government in Syria, where an uprising has killed more than 14,000 people in sixteen months. “The way things have been going thus far—we are not helping anyone,” said U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who drafted the negotiating text. “Let us break this trend and start being of some use.” Russia rejected wording that expressly prohibited Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from retaining power, and the final accord allowed for Assad’s regime to participate in the transitional government. “The country has been destroyed,” said Syrian opposition figure Haitham Maleh, “and they want us then to sit with the killer?”