Lakhdar Brahimi, who has succeeded Kofi Annan's role as a special envoy to Syria, told Al Jazeera that "change [in Syria] is necessary, indispensable, unavoidable".br br Brahimi, as joint United Nations-Arab League envoy, is tasked with mediating a seemingly intractable conflict between President Bashar al-Assad's increasingly embattled government and rebels who say they will not lay down their arms until he is dead or gone.br br Brahimi, a longtime UN diplomat and former foreign minister of Algeria, stopped short of calling for Assad to step down.br br "Kofi talked to him, and I will talk to him," he said.