Envoy

Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell is stepping down as the United States' special envoy on Mideast peace, an official acknowledgement that the Obama administration’s 2-year-old peace initiative is dead. Associates said Mitchell saw little point in continuing in the job, since there had been little movement in the peace effort since last fall. Mitchell's resignation takes effect May 20. President Obama officially announced his departure Friday afternoon. "Over the past 2 1/2 years, George Mitchell has worked as a tireless advocate for peace as the U.S. Special Envoy for the Middle East.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ryan Crocker, a respected diplomat who came out of retirement to become the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, is leaving his post this summer, a year ahead of schedule. U.S. Embassy spokesman Mark Thornburg on Tuesday confirmed Crocker's plan to depart. Rumors had swirled during the weekend summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Chicago, which Crocker attended. The 62-year-old Crocker had served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, taking the diplomatic helm there during a crucial period, from 2007 to 2009, that coincided with a sharp increase in U.S. troop levels to tamp down escalating violence.

Syria on Tuesday agreed to a peace plan put forward by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but fighting raged on between government forces and rebels, officials and activists said. Some Syrian opposition figures said they held out little hope for the peace plan, which they said did not address their principal demand: the resignation of President Bashar Assad. Assad agreed to the six-point plan, endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, in a letter to Annan, an envoy of the United Nations and Arab League.

BEIRUT — Violence in Syria has continued amid a cease-fire, increasing concern that the country is descending into a civil war that could have frightening implications beyond its border, United Nations envoy Kofi Annan told the Security Council on Tuesday. The U.N.-backed peace plan, meant to end the bloodshed of a 14-month antigovernment uprising, remains the only chance to stabilize the country, Annan said. "If it fails … and it were to lead into a civil war, it will not affect only Syria, it will have an impact on the whole region," he said at a news conference in Geneva after his briefing.

A special peace envoy to Syria failed to win a cease-fire agreement after two days of talks with President Bashar Assad, but Kofi Annan left the country Sunday declaring he was optimistic that a peace process could take hold. "It's going to be tough. It's going to be difficult," the former United Nations secretary-general told reporters in Damascus, the Syrian capital. "But we have to have hope. " Few outside observers expected that the veteran diplomat from Ghana would secure a quick breakthrough in the yearlong crisis, which has cost thousands of lives and resisted diplomatic remedies.

The senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan sought Friday to dispel suggestions that he had been sidelined during dramatic diplomacy in Afghanistan because of his stormy relationship with the Afghan president. Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke acknowledged that he had been in Washington, rather than Kabul, last weekend as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and other senior U.S. officials pressured a reluctant Karzai to agree to a runoff election, which has been scheduled for Nov. 7. Holbrooke, in a State Department news conference, said he had remained in Washington to take part in deliberations on whether to overhaul the U.S. strategy and send thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

L. Paul Bremer III, the presidential envoy to Iraq under former President George W. Bush, said that while he was an early critic of President Obama's strategy in Libya, the stunning developments in Tripoli show the merits of the administration's approach. “I was among those who were critical of the position of 'leading from behind,"' Bremer told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. “I think as a general proposition that's not a good position for the U.S. to be in. On the other hand, I think the outcome should give the administration some degree of satisfaction.

Allied military commanders in Afghanistan have told a senior U.S. envoy that they need more troops to deal with an intensifying insurgency in the country's east, raising the possibility that the Obama administration may refocus the war on the lawless border with Pakistan. Any request to increase overall troop levels to bolster forces in the east could face resistance from Congress, coming at a time when U.S. support for the war appears to be softening. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week showed that a slight majority of Americans now believe the war is not worth fighting.

The American envoy's armed convoy rumbled through the dusty streets of Kabul, stopping at one polling place, then another, as Afghans voted in their first contested presidential election. In the August heat, Richard C. Holbrooke watched the balloting, his satisfaction tinged with concern. Widespread violence had been averted. But the integrity of the election, so vital to American plans, had yet to be proved. Mingling with people and sampling pastry sold by some children on a corner, Holbrooke said the process appeared "peaceful and orderly," but warned as he squinted at one of the complicated punch cards that "the test comes when people count the ballots."

Eduardo Palomo Escobar, 54, has been nominated as Guatemala's ambassador to the United States, replacing Federico Fashen Ortega, the government announced Thursday.

BEIRUT - The presence of United Nations-backed monitors in Syria is providing only brief respites from violence and in some cases may be making the situation worse, a spokesman for U.N. and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan said Tuesday. Annan spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said the small advance team of monitors is facing great difficulty in stemming the fighting between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition groups. "When they leave, the exchanges start again," Fawzi told U.N. Television in Geneva, referring to the monitors.

BEIRUT - Two days into a fragile truce, and the question many are asking is, when is a cease-fire no longer a cease-fire? On the second day of a United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence and unrest in Syria's 13-month uprising, mass protests returned to the streets and in some places were met with gunfire, killing at least eight people, according to activists. In other towns, soldiers and security forces stationed nearby allowed protesters to gather, but the very presence of armed government forces was a violation of the plan.

BEIRUT - A peace plan deadline for pulling back government forces in Syria came and went Tuesday as attacks across much of the country continued, leaving the international community with little besides condemnation for the country's leadership. But in a show of optimism that seemed to defy the bloody situation in Syria, United Nations and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan held out hope that a cease-fire might still be reached by Thursday as planned and that negotiations could begin between the government of President Bashar Assad and the opposition seeking Assad's ouster.

BEIRUT — The United Nations-backed peace plan to end violence in Syria appeared to unravel Sunday as the Syrian government announced it will not withdraw its forces from cities and towns without written guarantees from opposition groups that they will halt attacks and lay down their arms. Rebels with the Free Syrian Army quickly signaled that they would provide no written guarantees to a government they do not recognize, suggesting that fighting probably will continue past the Thursday deadline for a cease-fire.

BEIRUT - Syria has agreed to an April 10 deadline to abide by a U.N.-backed peace plan that would require its forces to stop shelling opposition-held areas and withdraw tanks and heavy weapons from cities and towns, special envoy Kofi Annan told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. Annan, who proposed the six-point plan last month, has also reached out to the opposition and urged it to halt operations within 48 hours of the regime's ceasing its offensive. But rebels and activists, who have been calling for the fall of President Bashar Assad for a year, expressed skepticism, as they have with previous failed attempts to negotiate with the regime.

BEIRUT -- Clashes and shelling were reported across Syria on Friday, even as the former secretary-general of the United Nations said he expected an immediate cease-fire by President Bashar Assad's forces. At least 45 people were killed nationwide in the violence, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a coalition of opposition activist groups. The killings, including 14 in the northeast city of Dair Alzour and 12 in the central city of Homs, took place amid large protests across the country by activists demanding action in the Arab world in support of their cause.

President Reagan announced today he is nominating Richard Wood Boehm, a career diplomat, to succeed George Cranwell Montgomery as ambassador to Oman. Boehm, 62, is currently diplomat-in-residence and visiting professor at Howard University.

The Senate confirmed the nomination Friday of Timothy Lathrop Towell as U.S. ambassador to Paraguay. Towell, a career Foreign Service officer, was routinely approved, 88 to 0, without debate.

Syria on Tuesday agreed to a peace plan put forward by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but fighting raged on between government forces and rebels, officials and activists said. Some Syrian opposition figures said they held out little hope for the peace plan, which they said did not address their principal demand: the resignation of President Bashar Assad. Assad agreed to the six-point plan, endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, in a letter to Annan, an envoy of the United Nations and Arab League.

  Speaking with an unusually unanimous voice on a divisive issue, the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday approved a statement supporting former Secretary-General Kofi Annan's peacemaking efforts in Syria and the delivery of aid for victims of the violence. The nonbinding vote included the support of Russia, which has stood in the way of previous council proposals on Syria. Moscow has opposed international intervention in the conflict and has a long-standing alliance with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.