UNSC with ‘serious split’ over Syria meets in Swedish town

Hopefully there will be some new ideas on the table and I think it’ll be on those tracks: the humanitarian situation, the chemical weapons, Margot Wallstrom, Swedish Foreign Minister

backakra (Sweden) — The UN Security Council met in a secluded farmhouse on the southern tip of Sweden on Saturday in a bid to overcome deep divisions over how to end the war in Syria.

In a first for the Security Council, which normally holds its annual brainstorming session in upstate New York, the 15 ambassadors and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were this year invited to hold an informal meeting in Backakra by Sweden, a non-permanent member of the body.

The United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is expected on Sunday.

“We still face a very serious divide on that (Syria) matter,” Guterres said as he arrived along with the ambassadors.

“We really need to find a way in relation to the violation of international law that the use of chemical weapons represents,” he added.

The farmhouse is the summer residence of Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations’ second secretary-general who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1961.

Situated in the heart of a nature reserve, just a stone’s throw from the Baltic Sea, the farmhouse consists of four buildings around a courtyard and has been completely renovated in recent years.

The southern wing serves as the summer residence for the Swedish Academy which awards the Nobel Literature Prize.

With both New York and Damascus thousands of kilometres away, the council is exploring “the means to strengthen and make more effective United Nations peacekeeping missions,” the Swedish government said.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom welcomed the decision to hold the meeting in Sweden, “where there is a long tradition of peaceful conflict prevention and resolution”. But she warned against being too hopeful the Syrian issue would be resolved over the weekend. “Hopefully there will be some new ideas on the table and I think it’ll be on those tracks: the humanitarian situation, the chemical weapons,” she said.

But “not even the beautiful settings like these can solve all the problems”, the minister added.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said on the Syria issue: “We’re not having that much success, we’re still deadlocked. “Retreats like this are very important — to get away from New York sometimes and discuss these things in a way that we can really try and find a solution.” —