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France 24
July 25, 2013
More than 100,000 people have now been killed in the Syrian civil war, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said Thursday as he appealed for new efforts to convene a peace conference.
On the ground, violence raged in the flashpoint city of Homs and a car bombing in Damascus killed 17 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The UN chief and US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the United Nations there could be no military solution to the 28-month-old conflict.
The Britain-based Observatory has previously reported that the death toll had crossed the 100,000 threshold.
On Thursday, Ban said: “More than 100,000 people have been killed, millions of people have either been displaced or become refugees in neighbouring countries.
“We have to bring this to an end. The military and violent actions must be stopped by both parties, and it is thus imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible.”
The United States and Russia vowed in May to press for a follow-up to a peace conference held in Geneva last year that set out a transition plan.
However, divisions in the international community and disagreements between the Syrian regime and opposition about the goals of such a conference have blocked efforts.
Opposition Syrian National Coalition president Ahmad Jarba was in New York for talks with Kerry ahead of a Friday meeting with UN Security Council envoys.
“There is no military solution to Syria, there is only a political solution. That will require leadership in order to bring people to the table,” Kerry said.
He said he spoke on Wednesday with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“We remain committed to the effort to bring the parties to a Geneva II, to implement Geneva I, and we will try our hardest to make that happen as soon as is possible,” he said.
Ban has previously said he would like a peace conference in September. But UN diplomats say the conflict is now so bitter that they doubt the two sides can be brought to the negotiating table at all.
