Damascus: The United Nation’s observer mission in Syria has officially ended.
The UN decided to end the mission in response to escalating violence as world powers fail to agree how to end months of bloodshed in the country.
Announcing the end of its observer mission, the UN said a small civilian office would be set up instead to maintain political contacts, the BBC reports.
According to the report, the mission ended at midnight on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the successor of former UN envoy Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on Sunday that his task was no longer to prevent a civil war, but to end one.
“Civil war is the cruelest kind of conflict, when a neighbour kills his neighbour and sometimes his brother. It is the worst of conflicts,” Brahimi told France 24 television.
“There are a lot of people who say that we must avoid civil war in Syria, but I believe that there has already been a civil war there for some time now,” he said.
“What's necessary is to stop the civil war and that is not going to be easy,” he added.
Annan quit at the beginning of August, saying the increasing militarisation of the conflict as well as a lack of unity in the UN made it impossible for him to carry out his task.
ANI
First Published: Monday, August 20, 2012, 13:42