Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi announced he will step down on May 31, blaming an international deadlock over how to end the country's three-year civil war for hampering a bid to broker peace, according to the Associated Press.
United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Brahimi's resignation on Tuesday, the AP reported. Brahimi briefed the 15-member Security Council for the final time on Tuesday.
International and regional powers have backed opposing sides in the civil war that has killed at least 150,000 people, according to the AP. Russia and Iran have shown support for President Bashar al-Assad, and Western powers and Gulf Arab states have supported the rebel groups.
Brahimi has threatened to quit before, just like former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who resigned as U.N. and Arab League joint special representative on Syria in 2012 after six months on the job, the AP reported.
Annan said the U.N. Security Council failed to unite behind efforts to end the fighting, according to the AP.
Brahimi left "a few ideas" with Ban and the Security Council, including focus on getting more aid into Syria, reduce and end the violence, end the flow of arms into Syria and help form an executive to lead Syria's transition by organizing a national dialogue, conference, constitutional review and elections, the AP reported.
Ban said he will find someone to replace Brahimi, with diplomatic sources saying there are several possible candidates, like former Tunisian Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane, according to the AP.
"At this time, I have to think who should be the right person and at what time," Ban said, the AP reported.
Ban also praised Brahimi's perseverance in the face of "impossible odds, a Syrian nation, Middle Eastern region and wider international community that have been hopelessly divided in their approaches to ending the conflict,"according to the AP.
"That his efforts have not received effective support from the United Nations body that is charged with upholding peace and security, and from countries with influence on the Syrian situation, is a failure of all of us," Ban said, the AP reported.
