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2 weeks 2 days ago - New York
Weapons are being smuggled in both directions between Lebanon and Syria, the United Nations has said.
"Based on information that we have there are reasons to believe that there is a flow of arms both ways - from Lebanon into Syria and from Syria into Lebanon," Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special envoy to the Middle East, told reporters after briefing the 15-member UN Security Council on Tuesday about events in Lebanon.
"We do not have independent observers for this, but we are basing our reporting on information we are receiving from a variety of sources," he said.

According to Roed-Larsen's briefing notes, he told the council UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had raised the issue of cross-border arms transfers with Lebanese officials during a recent visit to Beirut, urging them to improve border control.

Roed-Larsen, the UN special representative on Security Council resolution 1159, passed in 2005 and calling for Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, sees growing dangers in the Middle East.

"What we see across the region is a dance of death at the brink of the abyss of war," he said.

Click here to continue reading our story: 'Arms flowing' between Lebanon and Syria
Tags lebanon, syria, Terje Roed Larsen, UN special envoy, weapons smuggling
2 weeks 2 days ago - New York

International envoy Kofi Annan Tuesday told the UN Security Council he intends to return to Damascus in the coming days, British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said.

Annan was reporting to the Security Council on his efforts to mediate an end to the violence in Syria. The exact date for his visit to Damascus has not been set yet.


Annan visited Damascus at the start of his mission, but has not been back since.


According to diplomats, he told the UN's chief decision-making body that his peace plan may be the "last chance" to avoid civil war in Syria as the  regime of President Bashar al-Assad pursues attacks and the torture of prisoners.

Tags Kofi Annan, syria, UN Security Council, United Nations
3 weeks 3 days ago - New York

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned on Monday "terrorist bomb attacks" in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Idlib, and noted that while there had been security improvements in areas monitored by UN observers, he was "gravely concerned" by the continued violence.


"The Secretary-General condemns the terrorist bomb attacks in the cities of Idlib and Damascus which took place today and on 27 April 2012, killing and injuring scores of people," Ban's press office said in a statement


"While noting improvements in areas where UN monitors are deployed, the Secretary-General remains gravely concerned by reports of continued violence, killing and abuses in Syria in recent days," it said.

Tags Ban Ki Moon, damascus, idlib, syria
4 weeks 2 days ago - New York

Kofi Annan the UN's special envoy to Syria has been briefing the Security Council.
 
He denounced the renewed violence in the country as unacceptable.
 
Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey has been following events at the UN in New York

Tags Kofi Annan, syria, UN observers, United Nations
5 weeks 3 days ago - New York

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has released a press statement condemning the attacks in Kabul and the provinces of Nangarghar, Logar, and Paktia earlier this week:

Along with condmening the attacks themselves "in the strongest terms", the UNSC also "commended the Afghan National Security Forces for their effective action".

 

Tags Afghanistan, United Nations Security Council, UNSC
5 weeks 3 days ago - New York

The United States warned that heightened violence in Syria threatens the sending of a full UN ceasefire observer mission.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said on Monday new attacks by government forces "call into question the wisdom and viability" of sending the full 200 international monitors.

The first unarmed UN military observers started work in Damascus on Monday. The UN Security Council has said, however, that the full force cannot go if there is a safety threat.

"We are gravely concerned ... that the violence continues, that the government seems to continue, if not in recent days intensify, bombardment in Homs in particular," Rice told reporters.

The government violence was "unacceptable" and against commitments made to UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, she added.

Should the cessation of hostilities started last Thursday collapse the United States and the UN Security Council believe "it will call into question the wisdom and viability of sending in the full monitoring presence," Rice said.

A UN Security Council resolution passed on Saturday approved only an advance mission of 30 observers. The full force will require a new UN resolution.

Syrian forces shelled the flashpoint city of Homs on Monday and killed 12 civilians in battles with rebels in Idlib, activists said.

[Source: AFP] 

Tags Susan Rice, syria, UN, UN monitors, US
5 weeks 4 days ago - New York

The first international observers tasked with monitoring a shaky UN-backed ceasefire in Syria have arrived in Damascus, a United Nations spokesman said Sunday.

"They've arrived and they will start work tomorrow morning," said Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping department.

[Source: AFP]

Tags ceasefire, syria, UN
5 weeks 5 days ago - New York

Syrian ambassador to the UN, Bashar Ja'afari, responded to the resolution reached by the UN Security Council. 

He said: 

“While we feel that this resolution was not balanced, Syria affirms that it is in its interests to guarantee the return of security and stability to the country.  We hope that the countries who abide by this resolution would implement it practically and would not send lethal or non-lethal aid to the terrorists and the armed groups."

Watch his presentation to the Security Council below.

Tags resolution, Security Council, syria, Syrian response, UN
5 weeks 5 days ago - New York

The first five or six UN ceasefire monitors will be in Syria on Sunday, a UN peacekeeping spokesman told AFP.

"Immediately the Security Council passed the resolution today we had five or six military observers getting on a plane. They will arrive in Syria probably tomorrow," Kieran Dwyer, the UN peacekeeping spokesman, said.

The UN Council approved sending a 30-person advanced mission to monitor the ceasefire established on Thursday.

Most of the first monitors left from the UN headquarters in New York, Dwyer said. The remaining 25 will arrive in the coming days.

"Mostly, they will be mobilised from nearby missions in the region so we can get experienced people," Dwyer said.

The UN has been looking at its missions in the Golan Heights region between Syria and Israel, and in Sudan and South Sudan for monitors to serve in the observer mission.

"Their first task will be to set up operating headquarters, and then they will quickly need to reach out to contacts both with the Syrian government and their security forces and with opposition forces so that both sides fully understand the monitoring role," said Dwyer.

"Then they will be able to set up a system for implementing the monitoring."

The Security Council approved the advance party but must agree on a new resolution to send the full monitoring mission, which would include at least 200 monitors under plans set out by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

[Source: AFP] 

Tags ceasefire, syria, UN resolution
5 weeks 5 days ago - New York

The US envoy to the UN, Susan Rice said: 

“For months the Syrian People protested peaceful in pursuit of their basic rights and universal democratic aspirations... only after they were met with violent retribution did they respond with self-defence ... and even as the US welcomes today's actions by the Security Council, we are under no illusions. Just this morning they resumed their brutal shelling of Homs and opened fire on mourners in Aleppo … Raising renewed doubts about the sincerity of the regime's commitment to a ceasefire.”

Tags Security Council Resolution, Susan Rice, syria, US

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