UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi on Syria agrees to continue

The U.N.-Arab League mediator in the Syria conflict, Lakhdar Brahimi, has agreed to stay on despite his frustration at the international deadlock that has prevented UN action to halt the two-year-old civil war, the United Nations said on May 9.

A dispute over Syria between Russia, which supports and provides weapons to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and the United States, which says Assad must go and backs the rebels, has left the UN Security Council paralyzed.

But in recent days Russia and the United States agreed to seek new peace talks that would bring together Assad’s government and the rebels in an attempt to push for a diplomatic resolution of Syria’s civil war. It is a move the United Nations praised as long overdue.