Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. UN Photo/Mark Garten (file photo)

The diplomatic troika: Joint Special Representative for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi (centre), US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hold joint press conference in Geneva. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferreé

Last week in Geneva, the United Nations-Arab League Joint Representative Lakhdar Brahimi held  a meeting with senior officials from Russia and the United States which sought a diplomatic alternative instead of resorting to military actions in resolving the Syrian imbroglio, especially the dismantling of the chemical weapons which the Syrian State under the wild donkey Al-Bashir Assad had unleashed on his hapless compatriots on August 21, 2013.

At the Geneva meet which took place at the UN Headquarters Mr. Brahimi was said to have spoken alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and United States Secretary of State John Kerry, the duo who too had earlier been meeting in Geneva to discuss a Russian proposal for Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control.

“The work you are doing is extremely important in itself… but also important for all those working with you to bring forward the Geneva conference successfully,” Mr. Brahimi said during the talks.

Vigilance said had been pushing the diplomatic option since the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg. It was gathered the goal of a second Geneva conference would be to achieve a political solution to the conflict through a comprehensive agreement between the Syrian Government and the opposition for the full implementation of the Geneva communiqué, adopted after the first international meeting on the issue on 30 June 2012.

The US Secretary of State Mr John Kerry said: “President is Obama is deeply committed to a negotiated solution and we know that Russia is likewise. We are working hard to find common ground to make that happen. We have both agreed to do homework required to make it happen.”

Kerry added:  “Both of us, Sergei Lavrov and I, our countries, our Presidents, are deeply concerned about the death toll and destruction and the acts on all sides that are creating more and more refugees, more and more of a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Whilst Mr. Lavrov on his part said that now that Syria had signed the legislative decree providing for the accession of Syria to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, “we have to engage our professionals…and the United Nations to design a road so that the issue is resolved quickly, professionally as soon as practical.

“We are very glad that Mr. Brahimi has invited us to discuss a longer term goal for Syria, namely preparations for the so-called Geneva II conference. From the very beginning of the Syrian conflict, Russia and the Russian President have been promoting a peaceful resolution,” he said.

Lavrov reminded that Russia had initiated the conference from which had emerged the Geneva communiqué agreed and signed “by nearly all the major players, including the United Nations, countries in the region and the P-5 [the permanent members of the Security Council].”

“It is very unfortunate that for a long period the communiqué was basically abandoned and we were not able to have Security Council endorsement of the very important document as is,” he said, thanking Mr. Kerry for his efforts to re-energize the communiqué and work with Russia towards its implementation including through the holding of a new Geneva conference. He said he was very grateful for the discussions with Mr. Brahimi.

Meanwhile, Vigilance learnt that the President of the UN Human Rights Council, which is currently in session in Geneva, issued a letter to both Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Kerry drawing their attention o the work of the independent international commission of inquiry on Syria, which the Council established in 2011.

The Council President, Ambassador Remigiusz Henczel of Poland stressed that the commission had yet to be granted access to Syria, despite repeated calls on Damascus to allow the experts to enter the country. The Council President suggests that the Russian and US officials might take up the matter during the scope of their meetings in Geneva.

The commission presented its latest report to the Human Rights Council on Monday, citing ongoing incidents of murder, rape, torture, widespread attacks on civilians and hostage-taking committed by Syrian forces and anti-Government armed groups. It said that “the perpetrators of these violations and crimes, on all sides, act in defiance of international law. They do not fear accountability.”

The panel, which described Syria today as “a battlefield [where] massacres are perpetrated with impunity [and] and untold number of Syrians have disappeared,” reported that Government and pro-Government forces in Syria have continued to conduct widespread attacks on the civilian population with impunity, committing murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance as crimes against humanity, stressed that there is no military solution to the conflict.

In his response to the Geneva meet between the troika in which Russia and the United States had reached an agreement on a framework for Syria to destroy all of its chemical weapons, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed the hope that the deal would  pave the way for a political solution to end the “appalling suffering” of the Syrian people.

The UN chief hailed the positive move by both the Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and United States Secretary of State John Kerry on the safeguarding and destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.

Last Thursday, the Secretary-General was said to have received a letter from the Syrian Government informing him that President Bassar Al-Assad would sign and abide by the 1992 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction.

Meanwhile, evidence collected by a UN team probing possible chemical weapons use in Syria on 21 August is undergoing examination by laboratories in Europe. The team according to UN the Secretary-General is “working around the clock,” in order to submit its report to him in due course.

“The Secretary-General expresses his fervent hope that the agreement will, first, prevent any future use of chemical weapons in Syria and, second, help pave the path for a political solution to stop the appalling suffering inflicted on the Syrian people,” said the statement.

Regarding talks on a political path out of the more than two year crisis, United Nations-Arab League Joint Representative Lakhdar Brahimi had been pressing ahead with his efforts towards the holding of a long-proposed international peace conference on Syria, commonly referred to as “Geneva II”, after the Swiss city in which it would be held.

In the mean time, since the now much trumpeted breakthrough, monster Assad’s forces have intensified its merciless pounding in the rebels held areas of Damascus before the chief priests of the diplomatic alternative step into Syria.

So where are the visionaries and the philosophers of the mould of Abraham Lincoln, Delano Roosevelt, Churchill, De Gaulle, etc who once gave the world purposeful and visionary leadership? But what has the world got to do with the current political eunuchs and rock star politicians who now pass for world leaders?