Pedersen’s opportunity
How the UN Envoy can salvage a sinking ship

Geir Pedersen, now halfway through his sixth year as UN Special Envoy for Syria, is known as a nice guy with a big smile and amiable demeanour but also as a tough negotiator. These qualities, however, have failed to break Syria’s political deadlock. His flagship initiatives — the Constitutional Committee and the step-for-step process — have lost steam. The pressing question now is how he can assert relevance and whether he is willing to depart from previous paths that failed.   

Chasing it
Pedersen’s mission was always going to be difficult. When he took office in February 2019, Assad and his allies had just captured major opposition strongholds and an outright military victory appeared imminent. Pedersen inherited the Constitutional Committee from his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, who had effectively ceded the UN’s mediating authority to the Astana trio (Russia, Iran and Turkey.) Initially, Pedersen showed courage in pushing for clear terms of reference (ToRs) for the Committee and a more balanced composition of members. Notably, he underscored the UN’s leadership and the Committee’s independence by not extending invitations to the inaugural session in October 2019 to any of the international stakeholders, including the Astana trio.

The litany of failures began in the second session, when Ahmad Kuzbari, co-chair of the regime delegation, declared that his group did not in fact represent the Syrian government, was not bound by the ToRs, and lacked the authority to agree to anything. That was in keeping with Assad’s assertion  that “there is no Geneva” and that Kuzbari and his colleagues were merely “supported by the Syrian government.” Instead of confronting this bad faith move by declaring a halt to the process, Pedersen side-stepped it and hoped that he could muddle on. When in subsequent sessions the regime-nominated delegation refused to engage seriously, Pedersen sought Russia’s help but in vain. His attempts in 2022-24 to persuade Moscow to agree to a new venue for the Constitutional Committee after they had vetoed Geneva came to nought. At the outset, foreign powers were not invited to the Constitutional Committee; now the Special Envoy felt unable even to convene without Russian facilitation. Contributing to this was the total absence of the US from the political process, which left Pedersen chasing after the Russians for lack of a counterbalancing force. The already dormant constitutional process became a charade when Damascus didn’t even bother to respond to the UN’s invitation for a ninth session scheduled for 22 April. 

Pedersen’s second flagship initiative, the step-for-step process, took a similar course. Pedersen aimed to trade Western money and political recognition for minor regime concessions that would make the lives of Syrians less intolerable, and labelled it as a stand-alone political initiative. As with the Constitutional Committee, Assad did not engage and Pedersen again turned to Moscow for help while simultaneously chasing Western donors for ever more concessions to be presented to Damascus. This too did not work.

A gamble too far
The internationalisation of the Syrian conflict meant that a political solution was always dependent on what the external stakeholders were ready to agree. Pedersen’s approach of putting zero emphasis on direct political negotiations between the Syrian parties – as outlined in UNSCR 2254 – reflected a belief that the West’s attempts at ‘regime change’ had failed, that the opposition was irrelevant, and that it was time to deal with the reality that Assad would remain in power for the foreseeable future. This strategy was really about buying time until the UN could give its seal of approval to a deal cooked up by the great powers – mainly the US and Russia – outside any formal UN process. Such a deal would see Assad remain in place with some reform-oriented changes that met minimum Western concerns on migration and terrorism. Until that moment came, the UN’s roles would merely be to maintain its relevance (i.e. the value of its seal of approval) through the above-mentioned twin initiatives, and to keep humanitarian aid flowing. That is perhaps why Pedersen’s public visibility was very limited, and why he rarely expressed any strong opinion about – or even vague criticism of – any conflict stakeholder. 

The rationale of Pedersen’s strategy cannot be dismissed categorically. The problem was that it simply didn’t keep abreast of evolving geopolitical dynamics. Talks that used to be held regularly between American and Russian diplomats in Geneva had already lost momentum by the time Pedersen took office. Any prospect for a deal between Washington and Moscow was then killed off with the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Wasted opportunity
The Syrian conflict’s macro-level stasis was paralleled by a growing humanitarian crisis. The reduction of UN cross-border aid, and growing pressure for refugee return by host governments, increased the strategic importance of humanitarian matters. As the highest-ranking UN official for Syria, Pedersen could have chosen to engage more actively in the work of the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) and the UN Country Team; but it appears that he and his advisors didn’t believe that providing guidance on the entire spectrum of conflict-related affairs – including the crucial humanitarian file – was part of his mandate. This became evident when northwest Syria was struck by an earthquake in February 2023, and so-called “humanitarian diplomacy” was handled solely by OCHA chief Martin Griffith. 

The problem then was that the diplomacy was not that humanitarian at all. Recognising the opportunity for a quick win, Assad met Griffiths three times while refusing to meet Pedersen even once. When the Security Council in July 2023 failed to re-authorise the resolution providing for cross-border aid from Turkey to northwest Syria, Griffiths and Assad hashed out their own bilateral accord. The details remain undisclosed, but remarks made by the RC/HC at a UN donor meeting in April suggest that the initiation of the Early Recovery Trust Fund (ERTF) was the price Griffith paid for Assad’s agreement. It may not be coincidental that Griffiths ordered the establishment of the ERTF in June 2023, at the height of his outreach to Assad; and the RC/HC himself told the press that the ERTF was a vehicle to bypass sanctions against Assad. By allowing the humanitarians to ride roughshod over his mandate, Pedersen missed a crucial opportunity to assert political leadership in line with a modus operandi common to UN Special Envoys elsewhere, for example Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, and Libya. Instead, potential leverage was lost, and the momentum passed to the humanitarians, who were neither mandated nor capable of navigating the present complex political-humanitarian web of interests and risks. 

Pedersen used to respond to critical questions about his role by arguing that his mandate was restricted by UNSCR 2254. Indeed, it seems that there was a deliberate decision to limit the Envoy’s purview to certain aspects of the resolution and to expand it selectively based on subjective criteria. UNSCR 2254 does not mention the Syrian economy or sanctions, but these issues figure  prominently in the Envoy’s briefings to the Security Council. Pedersen has considerable leeway, which he deploys according to a political calculus. It is commendable that the Special Envoy should address relevant topics; but the decision not to allow him greater oversight of  the work of the RC/HC and the UN Country Team was deliberate. It may have been informed in part by the deficient assessments of his advisors, some of whom have been in the OSE since the far-off days of Lakhdar Brahimi.

Back to basics
Pedersen could nevertheless still make a significant impact by announcing the end of the Constitutional Committee and the step-for-step initiative in its current configuration. He could replace them with a principled and realistic negotiation track, with three main goals:

1.   Providing political guidance. The UN Special Envoy should assert a position where he provides political guidance over all UN activities in Syria. This would not only shield the UN Country Team from regime manipulation, but might actually compel the regime to deal with the Special Envoy directly.

2.  Focusing on Syrian-Syrian negotiations. To move past outdated premises (US-Russia convergence, West-Assad concessions), Syrian-Syrian negotiations should be the starting point of any attempt to revive the political process. The start  should be confidence-building measures (CBMs) between Syrian parties, aimed at creating a ‘safe, calm, and neutral environment’ (SCNE.)

3.  Protecting the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). The HRP could be protected from undue politicisation by acknowledging the political nature of comprehensive early recovery and development assistance. The HRP should strictly focus on basic humanitarian assistance, while a new fund for development assistance should emerge from political negotiations. This would reduce the current grey zone that allows exploitation and discredits and/or hinders both humanitarian and development efforts.

To achieve these goals, the Special Envoy needs to reestablish the relevance and credibility of his office. This can start by fundamentally recalibrating the step-for-step initiative, and by announcing that the Constitutional Committee will be dissolved if Assad does not confirm in writing that the delegation attending any future meetings is representative and that agreements reached are binding. Pedersen should focus on the establishment of a development fund that would incentivise Syrian-Syrian talks. Regardless of how much the UN Country Team and UNDP might wish to disguise it, the ERTF is about development assistance, and it therefore needs to be viewed first and foremost through a political lens. This means replacing the ERTF as it is currently proposed with a fund for the whole of Syria that disburses on a conditional basis, and that is governed by a body that represents all donors and Syrian conflict parties.