New Syria envoy Brahimi meets with Ban at UN

The new U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria is meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban said Lakhdar Brahimi's extraordinary talent and expertise will be needed for the "crucial task of bringing peace and stability to Syria and promoting human rights there," Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky said Friday.

Brahimi is a veteran Algerian diplomat who served as an envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will be based at U.N. headquarters in New York when his new job starts Sept. 1. He plans next to go to Cairo for meetings with the Arab League.

The last of the U.N. military observers left Damascus on Thursday. The unarmed observers were part of outgoing envoy Kofi Annan's failed six-point peace plan to end the civil war.

Syrian officials have said they were looking forward to working with Brahimi.