Australia’s diplomatic role in the Middle East will be a critical factor in dealing with Syria’s humanitarian crisis, the international chief of the Red Cross says.

Director-General Yves Daccord says the Syrian crisis has almost become a global crisis that so far lacks a solution.

“It’s not a crisis which will finish tomorrow,” Mr Daccord told AAP.

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“There is no international convergence at the political level now to deal with this crisis which makes it very difficult.

“There is no solution right now, so far.”

The fight against ISIS and what is unfolding in Iraq would also be lasting and difficult, he said, but Australia had an important diplomatic role to play in the Middle East.

“It’s a very critical element,” he said.

“The Middle East will not go away, so I think there is an important dimension, a political dimension.”

Mr Daccord said the situation in Syria was one of the most, if not the most, complex crisis in terms of its humanitarian impact.

“It’s looking bad, very bad,” he said of the country of 21 million.

“They had a very good middle-income kind of health system, education system. This is gone.

“They have more than six million people who have displaced themselves within the country or who have (left the country).

“You have a level of violence that I have not seen for quite a long time.

“You still have some area of the country totally besieged, where nobody can move out, under enormous pressure, and if I look at the coming two or three years you have absolutely no options to find a solution.”

The Syrian crisis had become a regional crisis and almost a global crisis, he said, as countries such as Libya, Jordan and Iraq were, too, embroiled in complex situations.

“The Middle East is going through a major revolution of change and it will affect all of us for the next five to 10 years, I have no doubt about that,” he said.

The challenge was to bring countries such as China and Iran in on agreeing on a solution on ISIS to prevent ISIS growing.

Mr Daccord was in Melbourne to address the Australian Red Cross Centenary Summit.