U.N. Leader Deplores Syria War’s Spread to Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/world/middleeast/un-leader-deplores-syria-wars-spread-to-iraq.html

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Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday drew attention to perhaps the bleakest chapter of his tenure at the United Nations: the three-year-old war in Syria, and now the prospective unraveling of the region along sectarian lines.

“Suddenly, the cohesion and integrity of two major countries, not just one, is in question,” he said, as the war has spread into Iraq.

In an expansive speech at the Asia Society in New York that hinted at his frustration with all those who have fueled the conflict, Mr. Ban was especially sharp in criticizing the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for its use of barrel bombs and other devastating weapons.

“Governments that hope to regain legitimacy do not massacre their own people,” Mr. Ban said.

Without naming them, he castigated Russia and China for vetoing a Security Council resolution that would have referred the warring parties in the Syrian conflict to the International Criminal Court, prodding them to propose alternative ways to seek accountability for war crimes.

Mr. Ban also called for an arms embargo to stop the flow of weapons to fighters on all sides.

“I am here to express my anger and disappointment at the cold calculation that seems to be taking hold — that little can be done except to arm the parties and watch the conflict rage,” he said.

The speech came at a particularly grim moment for the United Nations. While it seemed vital a year ago in efforts to end the war in Syria, with a peace backed by the Security Council, the prospects for diplomatically resolving the conflict have since grown dim.

Neither the Syrian government nor its most powerful backers, Russia and Iran, seem to have taken the peace talks seriously, and the decision by Mr. Assad to seek re-election for a second seven-year term led to the resignation of Mr. Ban’s envoy, the veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi.

The secretary general has not appointed a successor to Mr. Brahimi. A senior United Nations official said this week that there was no point until it was clear what that envoy would be expected to achieve.

The stalled diplomacy has coincided with a failure of United Nations efforts to deliver humanitarian aid from across Syria’s borders, which have been blocked repeatedly by the government. Calls for accountability have been rebuffed. The conflict has left more than 150,000 people dead and displaced millions.

Mr. Ban said nothing directly about what the United Nations could do about the conflict’s spread to Iraq, except to caution against foreign military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremist group that is threatening Iraq. Mr. Ban urged Iraq’s leaders to form what he called an inclusive government that would not marginalize the Sunni population.

He welcomed recent contacts between Iran, which is heavily Shiite, and its regional rival Saudi Arabia, which is heavily Sunni, calling on both to promote “calm and reconciliation” in the region.

In urging an arms embargo, Mr. Ban said it was irresponsible for countries to support “parties in Syria that are committing atrocities and flagrantly violating fundamental principles of human rights and international law.” He had not even finished his speech when the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the main political opposition group, issued a statement demanding “serious weapons and training for moderate opposition forces.”

Later at a news conference at the United Nations, Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador, dismissed Mr. Ban’s call for an arms embargo, offering a reminder that weapons kept flowing to rebels in Libya despite a Security Council-endorsed arms embargo.

As for why his country vetoed the resolution that would have authorized the International Criminal Court to prosecute atrocities in Syria, Mr. Churkin said, “Accountability, reconciliation, all those things must be dealt with by Syrians as they try to settle this conflict.”