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UN Security Council to hold consultations on Syria

20 June 2012 02:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The UN Security Council will hold consultations on Syria on Tuesday afternoon, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"The (UN) under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, Herve Ladsous, and Major General Robert Mood, the head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), will provide an update on the latest developments and the UN Mission’s work (in Syria)," Nesirky said at a daily news briefing here.

"After that, Mr. Ladsous and General Mood are scheduled to speak to reporters at the Security Council stakeout," the spokesman said.

Asked about remarks by UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon concerning the Contact Group for Syria, Nesirky said that the secretary-general had spoken about the need for broad participation in that Contact Group. Asked whether that would include Iran, the spokesman said "yes."

In response to other questions, Nesirky noted that the secretary-general and the joint special envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, "have said that further militarization in Syria is not desirable."

The Tuesday briefing comes about three days after Mood announced that UN observers had suspended their monitoring activities owing to a recent intensification of armed violence across the Middle East country.

On Sunday, Mood appealed to all parties concerned to enable civilians trapped by the escalating violence to leave conflict zones.

"The parties must reconsider their position and allow women, children, the elderly and the injured to leave conflict zones without any preconditions and ensure their safety," Mood said in a statement issued on Sunday.

"This requires willingness on both sides to respect and protect the human life of the Syrian people," he said.

The Security Council established UNSMIS in April to monitor the cessation of violence in Syria, as well as to monitor and support the full implementation of a six-point peace plan put forward by Annan, the joint special envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League for the Syria crisis.

The plan calls for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue that takes into account the aspirations of the Syrian people, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.

The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria over the past 16 months.