UN chief: New Syria report ‘sickening and staggering’

UNITED NATIONS – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday, June 4, called a new report on growing atrocities in Syria’s civil war “sickening and staggering”, his spokesman said.

A UN panel investigating human rights abuses said there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that chemical weapons had been used by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and opposition rebels.

The panel said the 26-month-old conflict has reached “new levels of brutality” with new suspected massacres, sieges and widespread rights violations.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said Ban had read the study and “frankly he finds the catalogue of atrocities in that report to be both sickening and staggering.”

Its findings highlighted the need for greater diplomatic efforts to end the civil war and for Syria to give UN experts unfettered access to investigate the use of chemical weapons, he added.

Syria has blocked the UN inquiry saying that it should only investigate government claims of rebels using chemical arms.

“A credible and comprehensive inquiry requires full access to the sites where chemical weapons are alleged to have been used and only on-site investigation could provide evidence on whether or not chemical weapons were used,” said the spokesman.

“The secretary general has been saying for a long time that there needs to be an enhanced and accelerated push for a political solution to this carnage,” said Nesirky.

Top officials from the United States, Russia and United Nations are to meet in Geneva on Wednesday in a bid to set a date and agenda for an international conference on Syria.

Ban believes “it’s not easy to switch track and engage in political dialogue” but he “certainly hopes that there will be progress made there in Geneva towards the international conference,” said Nesirky.

Western powers had hoped the conference could be held by mid-June, but divisions within the Syrian opposition, doubts raised by the government side and wrangling over who should take part in the conference have all cast a shadow over its prospects.

The foreign ministers of Germany and France said this week that a peace conference probably could not be held before July. – Rappler.com