Kofi Annan: The world has let down the people of Syria

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan said in an interview with the Guardian Saturday that the international community has let down the Syrian people by failing to prevent the ongoing bloodshed in the embattled country.

Annan expressed his concerns about “the proxy war” being waged by Riyadh and Tehran in Syria, and “the unwillingness of inability” of regional powers to cooperate with the UN Security Council to resolve the crisis.

“We used to complain about proxy wars, funded and encouraged by the US and Russia, now we are seeing proxy wars being undertaken by regional powers; as I look around, you have countries that are more afraid of the regional powers than the superpowers because the superpowers are far away – they are not as closely involved – and the regional powers can play a very disruptive role in any country when they decide to,” Annan told the Guardian.

“So we’ve let the people of Syria down. While we are divided and pointing fingers and accusing each other, they are paying with their lives.”