Kofi Annan Acknowledges Weaknesses in Syrian Ceasefire Pact
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Jason Kempin/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — Kofi Annan is seeing his plan to bring peace to Syria crumble before his eyes.
Less than two weeks after President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian rebels agreed to the United Nations special emissary’s six-point ceasefire proposal, Annan admitted to the Security Council on Tuesday that the year-long violence has barely dissipated.
There are just six U.N. monitors on the ground in Syria and once they leave a city, the fighting resumes, mostly with the government bombarding opposition targets. There have also been reports of soldiers firing on people who’ve spoken directly with the monitors.
On Monday alone, 70 people were killed, with the majority of fatalities in the city of Hama. Annan called the violence “reprehensible and unacceptable.”
Satellite imagery also reveals the Syrian government has not followed one of the plan’s directives to remove heavy weapons from urban centers.
Last weekend, the Security Council agreed to boost the number of observers to 300, but there are concerns from the U.S. and Europe on how to keep the monitors out of harm’s way.
Estimates of the number of dead in Syria over the past 13 months range from 9,000 to more than 11,000.
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