United Nations and Syria .. Eight years with "hidden nostalgia"

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in 2011, the United Nations has failed to reach a solution to end the conflict or stop the killings despite many initiatives and negotiations rounds between the conflicting parties.

The fourth UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pederson, arrived in Damascus on Tuesday for his first visit since he was appointed to hold talks with officials who might succeed while others failed to do so.

Russian veto
In April 2011, six weeks after the start of the peaceful popular protest movement against the regime in Syria, Russia and China blocked a UN statement proposed by Western countries condemning Damascus' crackdown on the demonstrations.

Since then, Russia's main ally, Damascus, has vetoed the UN Security Council 12 times to prevent resolutions condemning Damascus. Most recently in April 2018 when Russia prevented the United Nations from adopting a resolution proposed by the United States to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Annan and Brahimi
On February 23, 2012, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a joint envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States to Syria. In August 2012 Annan announced his resignation, saying that "the increasing militarization on the ground and the apparent lack of unity within the Security Council radically changed the conditions for the exercise of his duties."

Annan proposed a six-point peace plan to stop fighting and a political transition, but it did not come to light.

In August 2012, former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi was appointed successor to Annan. In early 2014, Brahimi organized the first negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition in Geneva. But negotiations failed to make any progress, and Brahimi quit his post in May of the same year.

Tours de Mistura
In 2016, the third UN envoy, Stephane de Mistura, launched new negotiations between the government and the opposition in Geneva. Three consecutive rounds of talks were held in early 2016.

Between March and July 2017, four more rounds of indirect talks were held that yielded no results.

On December 14, 2017, after the eighth round, de Mistura accused Damascus of causing the negotiations to fail because it rejected a genuine dialogue with the opposition, calling it a "golden opportunity lost." On January 26, 2018, the ninth round ended with disappointment.

Field and politics
In October 2016, de Mistura warned that the city of Aleppo, where the opposition factions controlled its eastern neighborhoods, would land if the United Nations failed to stop the war.

"Aleppo is now synonymous with hell," former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at his last press conference on December 16, 2016.

The United Nations observed the lack of field developments, the battles, the deaths of countless people, and the siege policy of the regime's forces from Aleppo to the eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

In February 2018, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterich, described the situation in the eastern Ghouta as "hell from the ground" during a violent attack that ended with the control of the regime forces.

On April 10, the UN Security Council saw a sharp split after a chemical weapons attack that Western countries accused Damascus of carrying out in the eastern Gauta. Three draft resolutions were voted on, two proposed by Russia and none supported, one by the United States and one by Russia.

Astana
Since its launch in early 2017, Astana talks between Russia and Iran, Damascus' main ally and opposition-supporting Turkey, have become the source of the most prominent initiatives in the conflict.

Several rounds of talks were held in Astana, the most prominent of which took place on May 4, 2017, in which four tension reduction zones were established in Syria, in Idlib (north-west) and adjacent areas in the governorates of Hama, Aleppo, Lattakia, and northern Homs, And the eastern Ghouta near Damascus, and the south of the country.

These areas actually experienced a decline in the severity of the killings before the regime regained three of them later on the impact of military operations and settlement agreements. Idlib, in the northwest of the country, is the latest tension-reduction zone.

The talks, which highlighted the Russian-Turkish rapprochement after a long disagreement over Syria, emerged as a strong alternative to the Geneva negotiations.

The recent resignation
In October 2018, de Mistura announced his resignation for "personal reasons". In the same month, the head of the UN Working Group on Humanitarian Assistance in Syria, Jan Egeland, announced his resignation, citing "very difficult" work.

Last year, de Mistura's efforts focused on forming the Constitutional Commission, whose idea emerged in January 2018 during a summit of the three guarantors of the peace process - Russia, Iran and Turkey.

But de Mistura failed to form a committee that is supposed to have 150 members. "I am very sorry that the work has not been completed," the Italian-Swedish diplomat told the UN Security Council on Dec. 20.

After the failure of the three former envoys, Gader Pederson took office this month. He arrived in Damascus on Tuesday for his first visit since his appointment.