Syria

Former UN Mediators Aim to Make Mideast Peace Work Home-Grown

• April 21, 2021

A high-powered cast of former senior United Nations mediators from the Middle East and North Africa have founded a conflict-resolution organization, the International Center for Dialogue Initiatives, or ICDI, to mitigate the failures of foreign peace brokers and enable home-grown peacemakers to become more influential in their region, the founders say. Jamal Benomar, a …

Libya, Middle East, Syria

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THIS WEEK @UN

The Covid-19 Anniversary; Seeking a Woman Secretary-General; a Sad Women’s Day

Ivana Ramirez

• March 13, 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic anniversary; digitally recruiting women to run for the United Nations’ top job; International Women’s Day, a bit of a downer. You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from the UN spokesperson’s press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. We encourage you …

Cities, Gender Violence, Migration, Myanmar, Secretary-General, Security Council, Syria, This Week @UN, US-UN Relations

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As Explosive Weapons Kill More Civilians Abroad, US Companies Just Sell More of Them

Allison Lecce

• July 15, 2020

For the ninth year in a row, 90 percent of people killed by explosive weapons in urban areas were civilians. The use of these devices is proliferating in conflicts because they are becoming easier to come by — sometimes they are even homemade. The United States is the world’s largest overall exporter of arms …

Disarmament, Middle East, Security Council, Syria

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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

From Five to Four: Belgium Strives to Fill the European Gap in the Security Council Left by Brexit

Stéphanie Fillion

• February 6, 2020

In Brussels, the month started with the removal of Britain’s flag from the European Union headquarters, while in New York, Belgium became rotating president of the United Nations Security Council for February, ready to fill the political vacuum left by Britain’s departure from the European bloc on the Council, thanks to Brexit. PassBlue met …

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Security Council Presidency, Syria

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GEOPOLITICS

The Moment to End Turkey’s Other War, in Cyprus, Is Fading Fast

Stéphanie Fillion

• October 24, 2019

Anywhere from the capital of Nicosia, day and night, Greek Cypriots can see a giant flag painted into the mountains in the north, in a separate region that calls itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is an area that is recognized only by Turkey and isolated internationally. From the Greek side of …

Geopolitics, Secretary-General, Syria

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Hillary Clinton on Trump’s Foreign Policy: It’s All About Waiting for His Next Tweet

Dulcie Leimbach

• October 16, 2019

Hillary Clinton glided onto a stage in Manhattan with the luxury of now being a cool-eyed outsider who can sharply question foreign policy decisions being made by the Trump administration on such controversial places as China, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Clinton was the keynote speaker at the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s daylong …

Asia, Human Rights, Syria, US Foreign Relations

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A New OPCW Team Is Ready to Find the Culprits Behind Chemical Attacks in Syria

Johannes Visser

• May 6, 2019

THE HAGUE — The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is inching closer in trying to determine who instigated the various chemical attacks in Syria last year. In April 2018, gas cylinders filled with chlorine were dropped from a helicopter in the residential areas of Douma, outside the capital of Damascus. At least …

Asia, Disarmament, Security Council, Syria

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TOPIC: WOMEN

‘We Do Not Ask. We Act’: A Syrian Women Activist Tells It Like It Is

Maria Luisa Gambale and Laura E. Kirkpatrick

• November 20, 2018

Mariam Jalabi, a co-founder of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement and the Syrian National Council’s representative to the United Nations, reflected on Syria’s future in a recent conversation with Jamille Bigio, senior fellow in the Council on Foreign Relations’ Women and Foreign Policy program. Jalabi’s work focuses on women’s inclusion in politics and decision-making, and …

Syria, Women

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BOOKS

An Eloquent Homage to Syria’s Past, in Case It Has No Future

Irwin Arieff

• June 16, 2018

As one of the world’s oldest areas of human settlement, Syria has seen it all: glory and irrelevance, conflict and calm, dynamism and stagnation, tyranny and tolerance. While it has gone through long periods of international obscurity — pretty much ignored by the Roman and Ottoman Empires, for example — it has at times …

BOOKS, Syria

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WORLDVIEWS

Why Syria Will Need a UN Peacekeeping Force (Called Unshams)

Andrew McIndoe

• May 3, 2018

After seven years of horrific fighting, it appears that the Syrian civil war is inching toward a conclusion. In the wake of recent alleged chemical attacks unleashed in Eastern Ghouta, Bashar al-Assad’s regime is squeezing remaining rebel forces, largely herding them — and thousands of civilians — into the northwest in Idlib Province, where …

Peace and Security, Syria, UN Peacekeeping, WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

Why Turkey’s Model Work Permits for Refugees Don’t Actually Work

Tino Calabia

• February 5, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A major problem with Turkey for the millions of refugees there, it has a model work permit system for the newcomers, but it still bars them from the country’s labor market. Such problems can be overcome, experts contend, so that the refugees can work for decent wages in Turkey. Izza Leghtas, …

Human Rights, Poverty, Refugees, Syria, WORLDVIEWS

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BOOKS

A Hint on Confronting Islamist Power. Or Maybe Not.

Irwin Arieff

• October 7, 2017

Will it never end? When will time run out on the array of shape-shifting militant Islamist movements intent on moving into shaky trouble spots around the world to impose their extreme ideology, harness the population and hijack the local economy? How long will it take for the international community — the ubiquitous West — …

BOOKS, Libya, Middle East, Syria, Terrorism, US Foreign Relations

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Syrian Refugees Get Help to Run Their Own Business, but It’s Not Easy

Elizabeth Walsh

• September 4, 2017

TAANAYEL, Lebanon — Taanayel is nestled in Lebanon’s picturesque Bekaa Valley, and on a hot summer day in a feebly air-conditioned room, 35 Syrian female refugees gathered at a center shared by numerous local nongovernmental organizations. They arrived that morning by bus from Salaam wa Makhaba, a refugee camp nearby. The women are here to …

Refugees, Syria, Women

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

‘I Don’t Go Rogue on the President’: Nikki Haley’s Contradictory Testimony to Congress About the UN

Barbara Crossette

• June 28, 2017

Five months into her stint as United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley faced two days of often-sharp questioning on June 27 and 28 by influential panels of the United States Congress. They demanded justification for the Trump administration’s decision to slash funding to the United Nations, particularly cuts to the UN …

Nikki Haley Watch, Security Council, Syria, UN Agencies, UN Peacekeeping, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Was America’s Attack on Syria Legal? An Asian Expert’s View

Yasuhiro Ueki

• April 26, 2017

The images of civilians, particularly children, being asphyxiated by chemical substances and dying in Idlib Province of Syria on April 4 were a game changer. Judging that the chemical attack was carried out by the Syrian government, the United States, two days later, attacked Syria’s Shayrat airbase with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The US …