The U.N. slips out of Syria

Last week, the Security Council adopted a resolution that raised the possibility, if not the likelihood, that the U.N. will stay in Syria to help support a future peace deal. The resolution, which extended the beleaguered blue helmets’ mandate for a "final" 30 days, said the U.N. would consider keeping a presence if the security ...

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Last week, the Security Council adopted a resolution that raised the possibility, if not the likelihood, that the U.N. will stay in Syria to help support a future peace deal.

Last week, the Security Council adopted a resolution that raised the possibility, if not the likelihood, that the U.N. will stay in Syria to help support a future peace deal.

The resolution, which extended the beleaguered blue helmets’ mandate for a "final" 30 days, said the U.N. would consider keeping a presence if the security situation grew calmer, and if Syrian authorities fulfilled their commitment to pull their heavy weapons from urban centers.

Today in Damascus, Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye, the top U.N. military advisor who now takes command of the mission, again raised the prospect that the U.N. might stay. "We are back with the hope that wisdom will prevail; that there will be in this tunnel some light and that we can seize and obtain less violence."

But the U.N.’s peacekeeping chief, Hervé Ladsous, standing beside Gaye, disclosed that the U.N. had already withdrawn half of the mission’s 300 monitors, saying that they had been sent back to their countries "for the time being."

The disclosure suggests, of course, that despite the rhetoric, the U.N. is already well on its way out.

Follow me on Twitter @columlynch

Colum Lynch was a staff writer at Foreign Policy between 2010 and 2022. Twitter: @columlynch

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