Syria Peace Deal: Questions Remain
UN-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, meeting recently with Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad (Photo: United Nations)
International envoy, Kofi Annan, says Syria has accepted a six-point plan to end the conflict in that nation.
The plan commits the Syrian government to stop fighting and begin an inclusive political process. It also calls for an end to the use of heavy weapons in populated areas, for the release of prisoners, and for daily two-hour humanitarian “pauses” to allow aid to be delivered and the wounded evacuated.
But there’s a lot of skepticism. The United States, for one, says it would be best to look for action, not words, from the Syrian authorities.
Borzou Daragahi of the Financial Times in Beirut agrees, “I want to stay as balanced as possible in saying this,” he told The World’s Marco Werman, “but again and again over the past year, the Syrian regime has not been straightforward … It seems far more interested in physically liquidating the opposition, rather than making any reconciliation.”
On the ground, there’s been no let up in the violence.
Opposition activists say 95 were killed yesterday, and sent the names of the dead to journalists.
The United Nations says the death toll from the year-long conflict in Syria has now surpassed 9,000 people.
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