(AFP Photo)
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nabil Fahmy released a statement Sunday calling for the Geneva peace talks to resume “as soon as possible”.
While Egypt stands in solidarity with the people of Syria, there is no possible military solution to the conflict that continues to destroy infrastructure and kill civilians, Fahmy said in the statement.
“A political solution that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people for change, freedom, and democracy [that leads] away from the tendencies of extremism and terrorism, and ensures the rights of all Syrians without exception, and preserves the country’s territorial integrity and coexistence among its citizens without regard to their affiliations, is the only way out of the tragedy that we are seeing,” the statement read.
Fahmy also thanked Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Special Envoy to Syria, for his efforts and his “extensive experience in dealing with major crises”.
The peace talks have been troubled and ineffective so far, with opposing Syrian sides eventually refusing to meet in the same room.
The conflict in Syria, which started with mass protests against the autocratic rule of Bashar Al-Assad and spiralled into a full-scale armed conflict, recently entered its fourth year.
The United Nations recently decided to stop raising the death toll from the conflict, since the organisation can no longer verify its figures. The last count released was 100,000 dead in July 2013.
