Brahimi: No country allowed to use force on Syria without UNSC approval

UN-Arab League special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said that any action on Syria should be taken to the UN Security Council. He made the remarks after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg on Friday, according to an emailed statement from UN spokesman Martin Nesirky, Xinhua reported. Syria is now the most serious danger to peace and security, not only for the poor Syrian people and the Middle East, but also for the world, said the envoy. Commenting on possible military intervention by some countries, Brahimi said, "International law says that no country is allowed to take the law into their hands; they have to go through the Security Council. " The special envoy said he and other senior diplomats were working "extremely hard" to bring Syria and other concerned parties together for a conference to find a political path to help the Syrians out. The UN, he said, has been actively preparing for the so-called Geneva II meeting, which would include representatives of Syrian parties as well as senior United States, Russian and UN officials. The goal of the conference would be to achieve a political solution to the conflict in Syria through a comprehensive agreement between the government and the opposition with full implementation of the Geneva communique of June 30 last year. Yet, Brahimi said, the fate of the conference was "in danger" because of the alleged use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Aug 21. The biomedical and environmental samples taken by a UN chemical weapons inspection team from the alleged attack sites are currently being analyzed in four European laboratories. "It has to be completed according to scientific standards," Brahimi noted. "As soon as it is done, the Secretary-General will communicate the results to the Security Council and the rest of the international community."