UN’s top official in Syria is stepping down after 7 years of conflict and tumult
Sep 18, 2025, 9:34 AM | Updated: 3:02 pm
FILE - Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy to Syria, speaks to journalists in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki, File)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The official who steered the U.N.’s diplomacy in Syria for nearly seven turbulent years announced Thursday that he is resigning.
Geir Pedersen, who has held diplomatic posts for decades for the world body and his native Norway, told the U.N. Security Council that “I have informed the secretary-general of my intention to step down.”
Pedersen, 69, was appointed as the U.N.’s special envoy to Syria in 2018, seven years into the country’s civil war. Amid the chaos, Islamic State group militants took over significant parts of the nation. In 2019, the group lost the last sliver of land its fighters controlled, but sleeper cells linger.
Pedersen was charged with implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254, which aimed to usher in a political solution to the conflict between the government of then-President Bashar Assad and its opponents, but efforts to broker one repeatedly faltered.
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Sewell reported from Beirut.
