3 Key Takeaways from the UN Syria Envoy's Press Conference

Some hopeful signals

UN Photo UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen briefing reporters in Geneva

When the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, it had all the makings of a monumental catastrophe. The Secretary-General at the time, Ban Ki-moon, was not the same kind of jet-setting international peace negotiator as his predecessor, Kofi Annan. So Ban made a wise decision: he tapped the former Secretary-General to be his special envoy for Syria.

At the time, Annan was riding high as an ex-diplomat, having successfully negotiated a political settlement to a deadly and high-stakes internal conflict in Kenya.

Annan served as Syria envoy for less than a year but managed to secure the “Geneva Communiqué,” which eventually to the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2254 three years later. The resolution is significant because it outlines a process for negotiating a democratic transition for Syria. However, this process remained dormant for most of the last decade, making the resolution worth little more than the paper on which it was written — until now. (More on that below the fold.)

Despite getting this agreement on paper, Kofi Annan’s peace plan was never embraced by the key protagonists, and he resigned his post in protest over the lack of international consensus on a path forward for Syria. “Without serious, purposeful, and united international pressure, including from the powers of the region, it is impossible for me, or anyone, to compel the Syrian government, in the first place, and also the opposition, to take the steps necessary to begin a political process,” he said when announcing his resignation as UN envoy. “You have to understand: as an envoy, I can’t want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council, or the international community for that matter.”

That lack of international cooperation on Syria endured for most of the last fourteen years. Nevertheless, Ban Ki-moon tapped the next best person to a former Secretary-General: the legendary Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, who was globally renowned for his peacemaking and mediation experience. Alas, the fundamental geopolitical rift over Syria made even this legendary diplomat’s task impossible. Brahimi eventually resigned and was replaced by the less well-known (but deeply experienced) Swiss diplomat Staffan de Mistura, who served in the role from 2014 to 2018, before being succeeded by the current UN Syria envoy, Geir Pedersen.

Pedersen is an experienced diplomat who has served in senior roles in the Norwegian diplomatic corps, including as Norway’s ambassador to China and as part of the Norwegian team that facilitated the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in the early 1990s. He has held various senior UN roles in the Middle East for nearly 20 years before being tapped for his current position in 2018.

For most of his tenure, Pedersen’s hands were tied due to the same dynamics that Kofi Annan identified in his resignation letter. That was, until Sunday, when Assad fled to Moscow.

Now, Geir Pedersen is suddenly the central diplomat managing the international response to Syria’s political transition.

On Tuesday, he gave his first press conference since Assad’s ouster. The press conference was brief—just 19 minutes—but it revealed key insights about the current state of Syria’s transition and a potential path forward.

Here are three key takeaways from Pedersen’s remarks in Geneva.