Top UN Officials Arrive in Damascus 

(MENAFN - Qatar News Agency) Three senior UN officials arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus last night to assess the observers' mission which is operating in Syria to monitor the implementation of the six-point plan brokered by UN-Arab League joint special envoy Kofi Annan.

The officials are Herve Ladsous, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, deputy to Annan, and Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, assistant secretary-general and military adviser to the United Nations.

Upon arrival, Ladsous said the UN mission aims at achieving a cessation of violence in Syria and working towards the cooperation of all those involved in order to create space for political dialogues.

He said the mission also aims to have access to detainees and assess the violations of human rights.

For his side, Guehenno said he came to Syria to see "how the deployment of the UN observers is going to help in moving forward the political process," adding that he will meet with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to prepare the upcoming visit of Kofi Annan.

He said he wants to make sure that "this mission serves a purpose that really brings back peace to the Syrian people."

Annan has recently said that a maximum number of 300 observers will be deployed in Syria by the end of May.

The ongoing violence has undermined the work of the UN observers, who began to arrive in Syria last month to monitor the ceasefire brokered by Annan.