Upon the UN Special Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen’s call to restart the Syrian peace process, the negotiations conducted by the UN Security Council have not produced any results in breaking the deadlock surrounding the issue. It is reported that Russia was the actor which prevented any negotiations on the matter.
The latest meeting conducted by the UN Security Council came on the 10th anniversary of the successive Arab Spring uprisings, which also led to the civil war that ravaged Syria since. Russia’s blockage of the negotiations come as no surprise, since Russia, Assad’s strong ally in Syria, has been conducting parallel negotiations with Turkey, which supports opposition factions in northern Syria.