NEW YORK CITY: Samuel Zbogar, Slovenia’s permanent representative to the UN Security Council and its president for December, said a visit by a council delegation to Syria on Thursday, part of a broader regional mission that will also include time in Lebanon, is designed to rebuild confidence between Syrians and the international community.
Speaking from Damascus on behalf of the delegation, he stressed that the future of the country must be “Syria-led and Syria-owned.”
He continued: “The word of today was the word ‘trust.’ We heard a lot about trust, and we came here to build trust: to build our trust in your efforts for a better future, and to build your trust in the intentions of the Security Council and the intentions of the United Nations.”
Zbogar said the delegation took part in a wide range of meetings throughout the day, beginning with a session with President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, his foreign minister and other government ministers.
The delegates then met the UN’s country team in Syria, which Zbogar described as “quite a large, impressive team here in Damascus,” before moving on to talks with religious leaders, civil society figures, representatives of communities affected by recent violence in coastal regions and Sweida, and governors from coastal provinces.
