CAIRO – UN and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Monday during a visit to Cairo that he faces a “very difficult mission" in conflict-stricken Syria, as he prepared to visit Damascus. “I realize it's a very difficult mission, but I think it is not my right to refuse to give whatever assistance I can to the Syrian people," Brahimi told reporters after talks with Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi. “I am at the service of the Syrian people alone," Brahimi said. “I will go to Damascus in a few days and I will meet officials and civil society members in the capital and outside," he said. Asked if he would meet President Bashar Al-Assad, Brahimi said: “I hope to but I don't know." Brahimi, replacing former UN chief Kofi Annan who quit over divisions in the UN Security Council on the deadly violence that has gripped Syria for nearly 18 months, arrived in Cairo late Sunday. Annan stepped down as international efforts to end the conflict faltered, and with no signs of the bloodshed ending, expectations are low that Algeria's former foreign minister will have any more success than his predecessor. More than 27,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict erupted in March last year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United Nations puts the death toll at 20,000. Brahimi, a veteran troubleshooter, has already said he was “scared" of the mission awaiting him in Syria, and has described the bloodshed there as “staggering" and the destruction as “catastrophic." Brahimi's spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told reporters at Cairo airport the date of Brahimi's visit to Syria will be fixed once the final details of his programme of meetings are set. Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in Cairo, Iran said it was joining officials for a four-way “contact group" meeting looking at ways to calm the conflict in Syria. An Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, had left Tehran for the Egyptian capital to take part in the meeting, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's Al-Alam Arabic-language broadcaster. Brahimi's mission begins with key Security Council members the United States and Russia split on how to tackle the conflict and as fighting rages, with dozens of people dying in Syria every day. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that a new Security Council resolution on Syria would be pointless if it had “no teeth," because Assad would ignore it. As part of his diplomatic push, Brahimi may try to enlist Iran. In Tehran the Mehr news agency quoted an official as saying Brahimi was contemplating visiting Iran. Annan had also visited Tehran to try to get it involved in finding an end to the bloodshed, but Washington has accused Iran of playing a “nefarious" role in Syria. Arab leaders, meanwhile, have denounced the Syrian regime for carrying out “crimes against humanity." Arab foreign ministers Wednesday condemned “the pursuit of violence, killings and ugly crimes carried out by the Syrian authorities and their shabiha militias against Syrian civilians." Even as the latest diplomatic push to resolve the crisis unfolds, the fighting in Syria continues unabated, with scores of people reported killed. The conflict has also triggered a massive exodus, with current Syrian refugee numbers in neighbouring countries now 235,000, according to official UN figures. – Agencies
