U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday that developments in Syria over the last week are “grave and dramatic,” and it is “high time” for all parties in the country to “engage seriously” to resolve the nearly 14-year-long conflict.
“Tens of thousands of civilians are at risk in a region already on fire,” Guterres told reporters. “We are seeing the bitter fruits of a chronic collective failure of previous de-escalation arrangements to produce a genuine nationwide ceasefire or a serious political process to implement Security Council resolutions. This must change.”
On November 27, multiple rebel groups aligned under the leadership of U.N.-designated terror group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, launched their biggest challenge in years to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
They swept into Aleppo, which the government had held since 2016, stunning the Syrian army and capturing the airport, a military academy and much of the city. They also took towns and villages in Idlib governorate, and on Thursday were reported to be inside the central city of Hama.
The United Nations says that tens of thousands of people have been displaced in northwest Syria in the latest fighting.
Guterres said he had just spoken by telephone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey backs the rebel Syrian National Army, or SNA, and also has taken in millions of Syrian refugees since the war began in 2011.
“I emphasized the urgent need for immediate humanitarian access to all civilians in need, and a return to the U.N.-facilitated political process to end the bloodshed,” Guterres said he told the Turkish leader.
The secretary-general told reporters it is time “to chart a new, inclusive and comprehensive approach” to ending the war.
“In other words, restoring Syria’s sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity — and meeting the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people,” he said.
Guterres urged the parties to recommit to a nearly 10-year-old Security Council resolution that calls for U.N.-facilitated dialogue and to “engage seriously” with his Special Envoy Geir Pedersen.
Pedersen warned in a briefing to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that without de-escalation and a swift move to talks, “Syria will be in grave danger of further division, deterioration and destruction.”
Syria’s civil war grew out of peaceful anti-government protests that the Assad regime brutally sought to put down. It has spawned a massive humanitarian crisis, with some 7 million Syrians internally displaced and more than 5 million living as refugees outside the country.
The U.N. humanitarian office said that 16.7 million Syrians this year are expected to require assistance — the largest number since the beginning of the crisis in 2011.
