Mr. President,
After the issuance of the Secretary General’s 16th report on the implementation of the Security Council three resolutions on the humanitarian situation in Syria, there are still some member states in this international organization who deal with this painful situation in isolation of the foreign interventionist political, economic and military background. Perhaps the absurdity of this scene reaches its utmost when those some member states present themselves as the opponent and the judge at the same time since it is clear now for everyone that many of those who are lamenting the miseries of the Syrian people, are in reality the ones causing those miseries. The game now has come to the open, and the shedding of the Syrian blood in the North and South of the country is coordinated through the attacks of the operation rooms in both Jordan and Turkey.
This reality proves the lack of correctness and credibility in the approach adopted by some parties since the beginning of the crisis while dealing with the situation in Syria in general, and with the humanitarian issue in particular.
- To have political accounts to settle with the Syrian government is one thing, and to adopt internationally unacceptable coercive measures against the Syrian people is something else.
- To have a different approach from the Syrian Government is one thing, and to deny its role in protecting its people and maintaining sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of the country, and to refuse coordinating with the Syrian Government in combating terrorism and providing humanitarian assistance is another thing.
- To see the reality and deal with it as it is, and in accordance with the provisions of the UN Charter and rules of international law is one thing, and to be obsessed with targeting the Syrian Government with baseless allegations and to interfere in the Syrian domestic affairs is something different.
- To deal with the catastrophic consequences of the humanitarian crisis of Syria is one thing, and to ignore the root causes of this crisis and to be preoccupied with marginal issues is a totally something else.
Mr. President,
Needless to see, improving the humanitarian situation in Syria in a concrete and real manner entails abandoning the wrong approach I just mentioned. We cannot talk about ending the suffering and pains of the Syrians and about ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria in the light of the silence on the continuation of Turkey and Jordan to use their territory as a base and conduit for foreign terrorists and mercenaries. We cannot end the humanitarian crisis while the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others still prefer to generously support terrorism and calling it a "Revolution", instead of funding the humanitarian response plan, which funding did not yet exceed 25%.
How can we improve the humanitarian situation in the country in light of the fact that the CIA spends a billion U.S dollars, annually, on training terrorists in camps in Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some European countries, to form an army of ten thousand so-called “moderate” terrorists?
The sponsors of terror try to link every heinous action on Earth to the Syrian state, and they fabricated false witnesses and organized formal and informal conferences and meetings inside and outside the UN to tarnish the image of the Syrian government. They deliberately neglected the role of the armed gangs which they brought into Syria to commit murders, slaughter, looting and ethnic and religious cleansing. They ignored the massacres and murders committed by those gangs against the civilians before each session of the Security Council on Syria. They conducted interviews with takfiri and terrorist warlords, with gunmen, with those armed with machetes and swords, with those who eat human livers and hearts, while inferring legitimacy on them and presenting them to the media as revolutionaries in order to cover up the slaughter, bloodshed, rape, captivity, bombings and beheadings. They have ignored the indiscriminate mortar shells that fell daily on the heads of civilians in Damascus, Aleppo and other Syrian cities, killing thousands of innocent people.
Mr. President,
The Saudi documents newly leaked through WikiLeaks prove that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been working since the first months of the crisis in Syria to militarize the situation by providing money, weapons and support for terrorist groups. WikiLeaks also revealed that those three regimes, specifically, have formed a joint military committee for this purpose. It may be useful to some colleagues in this Council to familiarize themselves with the content of the telegram sent by the Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon to his capital on 1 March 2012, in the first year of the crisis in Syria, when some delegations in this Council promoted that what is happening in Syria is pure "peaceful spring movement". I quote some of what came in this Saudi cable: "We must continue to support the Syrian armed resistance by offering high salaries for each recruit defecting from the regular army, and to provide weapons equal to that with the regime. We must support neighboring countries of Syria, especially Jordan, and also providing financial support for the populations living close to the Syrian borders with Lebanon and Iraq in order to contribute to the formation of a sympathetic environment with the Syrian Revolution.” End of quote. This telegram was sent in early March of 2012.
Before the leak of the Saudi documents, Turkish press revealed some videos that prove the involvement of Erdogan regime in smuggling weapons to Syria in convoys meant to contain medical aid. Judge Aziz Takchi, one of the four judges who were arrested by Erdogan regime after the scandal, has confirmed that: "more than two thousand trucks loaded with missiles, rockets and bombs had been sent to Syria." Also, the president of the Turkish "Democratic People's Party" confirms that the massacre that took place in the town of Ain Arab (Kubani) last week, and which claimed the lives of dozens of people, came as a result of years of support from the Turkish government to the extremists of Daesh.
Prior to the aforementioned scandals, the United Nations reports have revealed that there is smuggling of weapons from Libya to Syria via Turkey and Lebanon. Prior to this and that, we have forwarded to the Secretary General, and to this esteemed Council, all the documents and information that prove the involvement of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the smuggling of weapons and facilitating the entry of terrorists into Syria. However, we encountered a flagrant denial by some in this Council. However, with each passing day, the correctness and credibility of what we have been saying since the beginning of the crisis, both within and outside this Council, are becoming clearer, and now the crimes of terrorism have reached the countries of those denying its presence in Syria.
Mr. President,
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the Syrian government is ready to cooperate with all sincere stakeholders in the Security Council to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria, and this is in spite of our awareness that some members in this Council have gone too far in their support for terrorism and they became part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. Those some members use human rights, protection and assisting of civilians as a tool to exert pressure in order to settle political accounts only. To prove the hypocrisy and double standards of those countries in dealing with these noble principles, it is enough to note that they did not suffice themselves covering up the Saudi regime’s support for terror in Syria, but they went further in covering up the Saudi war crimes in Yemen, and also preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid and causing a widespread famine there, especially in the holy month of Ramadan. The Saudi regime has prevented even the Red Cross aircrafts from delivering of medical aid to Yemen. In spite of all this, we did not see some member states that appoint themselves as the sponsors of human rights and the protection of civilians in Syria, saying a word to condemn those Saudi practices. Those members do not miss the opportunity to hold fabricated emergency meetings and side events to direct false allegations against the Syrian government which signed six humanitarian response plans with the United Nations enabling it to provide humanitarian assistance to nearly 4 million Syrian monthly.
Mr. President,
In Syria, we are fighting terrorism on behalf of humanity as a whole. The Syrian army, by eliminating foreign terrorists in Syria, is protecting dozens of innocent people who could be potential victims of those terrorists when they return to their countries to exercise their terrorism there. Those who seek to discredit this bright truth are partners in the spread of the scourge of terrorism. The scourge of terrorism, of which the steadfastness of Syria has led the Security Council to adopt three important resolutions under Chapter VII, specific to combating Daesh and Al-Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations. In spite of the lack of implementation of these resolutions, and despite of the many conspiring against us in Syria, we will continue in our war against terrorism, to protect our people and to rid the world of this scourge which is unleashed, and hitting in Damascus and Baghdad, and spread to Abuja, Tunisia, and stopped by Kuwait and Paris, and reached Sydney and Boston. It is a call on you to wake up before you regret when regret has no benefit.