UN’s top official in Syria is stepping down after 7 years of conflict and tumult
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The official who steered the U.N.’s diplomacy in Syria for nearly seven turbulent years announced Thursday that he is resigning.
Geir Pedersen, who has held diplomatic posts for decades for the world body and his native Norway, told the U.N. Security Council that “I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down.”
Pedersen, 69, was appointed as the U.N.’s special envoy to Syria in 2018, seven years into the country’s civil war. Amid the chaos, Islamic State group militants took over significant parts of the nation. In 2019, the group lost the last sliver of land its fighters controlled, but sleeper cells linger.
Pedersen was charged with implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, which aimed to usher in a political solution to the conflict between the government of then-President Bashar Assad and its opponents, but efforts to broker one repeatedly faltered.
The civil war began after mass anti-government protests in 2011 were met by a brutal government crackdown. The fighting killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population of 23 million.
The conflict was largely frozen for years, with the country carved up into areas controlled by the government and different opposition groups until December 2024, when Assad was ousted in a lightning rebel offensive led by Syria’s now-interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
The country has continued to grapple with deep political, ethnic and religious divides.
The current government and the Syrian people “are attempting a transition in the face of challenges and realities as complex and difficult as have been faced almost anywhere,” Pedersen told the Security Council on Thursday.
He called for international support for Syria and for its government to give all its people a voice in their nation’s next chapter.
Despite Syria’s difficulties, Pedersen said he believed that “with genuine negotiation and bold compromise, unity is within reach, and success against the odds is possible.”
Pedersen previously held various U.N. roles, including special coordinator for Lebanon in 2007-08. He was a member of Norway’s team that negotiated the 1993 Oslo accords, which resulted in mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, and he was Norway’s representative to the Palestinian Authority between 1998 and 2003.
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Sewell reported from Beirut.