UN rights chief urges reconciliation process in first Syria visit

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called on Wednesday for a Syrian national reconciliation process to ensure justice for crimes committed over the past five decades of iron-fisted rule by the Assad family.

President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by a lightening rebel offensive last month, ending 54 years of domination by his family and raising hopes for accountability for crimes committed during Syria's more than 13-year-long civil war.

In the first visit ever by a U.N. rights commissioner to Damascus, Turk met with the head of Syria's new administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and with victims of crimes the conflict.

"Transitional justice is crucial as Syria moves forward," Turk told reporters in Damascus. "Revenge and vengeance are never the answer. Instead there needs to be a fully nationally-owned, healing, truth-telling and reconciliation process."

He said such a process would address "past wrongs that have been committed by all actors in Syria over the past five decades", the period during which Assad and his father Hafez before him ruled over Syria.

Turk said his office had been remotely documenting evidence of crimes in Syria since war broke out in 2011 and that it would work with other U.N. agencies to address them. He said some Syrians were still unable to return home due to "demographic engineering" that had stripped their land and property rights.

"The extent of the atrocity crimes truly beggars belief."

Turk said he had heard "positive statements" from Syria's new leadership, and that Sharaa had assured him of its respect for human rights.

The commissioner also called for the international community to urgently reconsider and lift sectoral sanctions in Syria, which he said were impacting all Syrians.

(Reporting by Yamam Al Shaar and Firas Makdesi; writing by Maya Gebeily; editing by Mark Heinrich)