Joint U.N.-Arab League Special Representative to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said Friday that he and other senior diplomats were working "extremely hard" to bring Syria and other concerned parties together for a conference to find a political solution to the country's crisis. After a meeting initiated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Brahimi said that the United Nations has been working hard to prepare for the Geneva II meeting, which would include representatives of Syrian parties as well as senior U.S., Russian, and U.N. officials. The goal of the conference would to be to achieve a political solution to the conflict in Syria through a comprehensive agreement between the government and the opposition for the full implementation of the Geneva communique of June 30, 2012. Yet, Brahimi said, the fate of the conference was "in danger" because of the alleged use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, "and what may follow as a consequence of that." "I have drawn attention to the participants of this meeting today to the possible consequences ... I think the United Nations [has no] alternative but to continue to pay close attention to the situation in Syria," Brahimi said. The special envoy warned that no country is allowed to take the law into its own hands and urged that any action on Syria be taken to the Security Council. "International law says that no country is allowed to take the law into their hands; they have to go through the Security Council," Brahimi stressed. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had asked Brahimi to join him in Russia to push for a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
