UAE- A glimmer of hope in Syria coming from the UN: paper

ABU DHABI 20th December 2015 (WAM) -- A UAE paper has said that the unanimous decision by the United Nations Security Council on Syria a show of unity among the members with regard to the conflict in the Arab country gives us hope that the world has finally decided to put an end to one of the most dangerous human catastrophes in modern history.

"More than 300000 people have been killed and 14 million others made refugees or internally displaced by the five-year conflict. The country's major cities are destroyed and have been set back decades. It will take literally a miracle to put all that together again" said Gulf Today in an editorial on Sunday.

"But out of the usually impotent UN came hope at last. The 15 members of the Security Council approved a plan that will see a ceasefire in the next two weeks to allow for talks between the regime and the opposition which will take place at the same time under the auspices of the UN. The talks aim to agree on a transitional government that would oversee early elections.

"The threat of terrorism adopted as a strategy by many armed groups active in Syria may have led to the narrowing of differences among the different key players on the Syrian arena.

"They are focused on eliminating this threat as a prerequisite to ending the war in Syria. Thus the proposed ceasefire will not include those groups. It is imperative to have clear and objective criteria in deciding who is a terrorist and who is not.

"On Friday the Arab world marked the fifth anniversary of the so-called Arab Spring. A recent conference in Dubai established that those long and bloody five years have cost the region more than $800 billion (AED2.93 billion) and hundreds of thousands of lives. Syria is the epitome of that chaos.

The Dubai-based daily concluded by saying "We might be a long way from closing a tragic chapter in our history. But we all hope against all odds that the UN resolution in Syria is the start of the healing process."