GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan is urging Syrian ally, Iran, to help in an effort to achieve peace,
The joint UN and Arab League appointee on Syria met with Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, Wednesday 11 April in Teheran, saying that Iran could be “part of the solution”. The meeting comes a day before the ceasefire agreement that he brokered is scheduled to go into effect.
Iran is a key regional ally of Syrian President Bashir Al-Assad, as Damascus becomes increasingly isolated internationally in the face of continued violence against government opponents. Opposition forces reported 101 civilian deaths on Tuesday, according to CNN .
Annan said he received assurances that the Syrian government would respect the ceasefire, and that by 06:00 Thursday 12 April, the ceasefire hour, “We should see a much improved situation on the ground”.
Links to other sources: BBC, New York Times, Financial Times, Aljazeera
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has rejected claims that the UN had purposefully withheld casualty figures in the final phase of Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers. “I categorically reject – repeat, categorically – any suggestion that the United Nations has deliberately underestimated any figures,” he said in a speech to the General Assembly Monday 1 June. The rebuttal comes after claims made last week by France’s Le Monde newspaper that the UN under-reported figures of civilian deaths in order to maintain a presence in the country. Reuters
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – World headlines about endless casualties and aid organizations being kept out of Sri Lanka’s conflict area have died away, last week’s news, but the battle to find out what really happened and how many died may be only beginning, media reports 29 May show. Le Temps and Le Monde jointly carry an article by reporter Philippe Bolopion in Colombo that accuses the Sri Lankan government of hiding the real number of deaths and the UN of collusion out of fear that its ability to work in the country would be compromised. In the UK, The Times front-page story Friday 29 May says that 20,000 civilians – three times the official number – were killed.
The Times story is based on photos taken on the beaches in the conflict area, UN documents as well as “witness accounts and expert testimony.” The numbers are in fact the same as those published a day earlier by Le Monde, which also cites UN sources. The photos were taken for The Times. Le Monde refers to satellite images taken by Unosat of the conflict area, which reportedly show shelling damage, possibly after the date when the Sri Lankan government said it had stopped.
In Geneva Wednesday 28 the Human Rights Council, an independent inter-UN organization, rejected a Swiss-European draft resolution to investigate possible war crimes in Sri Lanka and instead adopted a Sri Lankan counter-resolution. Human Rights Watch condemned the UNHRC move, saying it had “passed a deeply flawed resolution on Sri Lanka that ignores calls for an international investigation into alleged abuses during recent fighting and other pressing human rights concerns.”
Up to a hundred civilians died in Afghanistan following US air strikes against Taliban militants active in the region.
The civilians, including women and children, had been caught up in fighting between Afghan government forces and the Taliban in the western district of Farah.
The Taliban reportedly attacked a police checkpoint, then took refuge in a nearby village targeted by US forces.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, currently in Washington to meet with President Barack Obama, has ordered an investigation.
