Foreign military interference into the ongoing conflict in Syria is not an option and the government of the country should be the first to end the violence, Al Arabiya news agency reported citing a new UN envoy on Syria.
Algeria’s former foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi officially replaced Kofi Annan as peace envoy to Syria starting this month.
Brahimi said that sending foreign military forces to Syria would mean a “failure of diplomatic efforts.”
“For me, this option is not available, and personally, this will be neither today nor tomorrow nor after tomorrow,” the agency cited Brahimi as saying.
The diplomat also said that “the Syrian government has to meet the people’s demand for change,” and the government’s responsibility to end the bloodshed is bigger than of the opposition.
Brahimi, 78, formally accepted the post earlier in the month and resumed efforts for a diplomatic solution to Syria's crisis.
Since March 2011, the Syrian conflict has claimed up to 20,000 lives, according to estimates by various Syrian opposition groups. The West is pushing for President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, while Russia and China are trying to prevent outside interference in Syria saying the Assad regime and the opposition are both to blame for the bloodshed.
