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30 September 2013 – The conflict ravaging Syria
is not a civil war but a war on terror, the country’s Deputy Prime
Minister said today in his turn at the rostrum at the high-level debate
that opens the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly.
“There is no civil war in Syria, but it is a war against terror that recognizes no values, nor justice, nor equality, and disregards any rights or laws,” Walid Al-Moualem, who is also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, told the Assembly, which began its General Debate on 24 September, offering would leaders an opportunity to weigh in on issues of national and global concern.
Many of the speakers in the debate have expressed concern about the conflict in Syria, which began in March 2011 and has claimed over 100,000 lives, sent more than 2 million people fleeing for safety to neighbouring countries and displaced 4 million within the country.
“Confronting this terror in my country requires the international community to act in accordance with relevant resolutions on counter-terrorism,” Mr. Al-Moualem said, in particular “to take necessary and prompt measures to compel those well-known countries that finance, arm, train and provide a safe haven and passage for terrorists coming from different countries of the world.”
He said that Al-Qaeda and its offshoots, like Jabhat A1-Nusrah, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the Brigade of Islam and many others are fighting in Syria. He added that many countries did not want to recognize that fact, despite the scenes of murder, manslaughter and “eating human hearts” that were shown on TV screens.
“In Syria, Ladies and Gentlemen, there are murderers who dismember human bodies into pieces while still alive and send their limbs to their families, just because those citizens are defending a unified and secular Syria,” he said.
On the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which a UN team has confirmed and which the Security Council last week demanded be eliminated, he said that it was Syria that first requested an investigation into the use of the poisonous gasses many months ago.
He assured the Assembly of his country’s full commitment to its obligations as a State party to the Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, now that a procedure had been agreed upon. In addition, he called for the establishment of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.
“However,” he added, there remained the question of “whether those who are supplying terrorists with these types of weapon will abide by their legal commitments, since terrorists, who used poisonous gases in my country, have received chemical agents from regional and Western countries that are well known to all of us.”
Affirming his Government’s desire for a political solution to the conflict, he called for a Geneva peace conference, the holding of which the UN-Arab League joint representative and various countries have been working to negotiate, to be convened without preconditions, so that Syrians along could determine the future governance of the country.
“It is now for those who claim to support a political solution in Syria to stop all hostile practices and policies against Syria, and to head to Geneva without preconditions,” he said.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=46134&Cr=general+debate&Cr1=#.UknE4X-IzJc
30/9/13
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Related:
Assad says he could have stepped down if it helped his country (VIDEO Rai News 24 It).
UN Security Council agrees to rid Syria of chemical weapons. Endorses peace process. (4 video UN 27/9/13)
Syrian FM: backing ‘terrorists’ will not yield political solution...
- US, UK and France prevented Syria from unmasking chemical weapon perpetrators- Syrian Foreign Minister
According to Muallem, Damascus proposed UN chemical weapons experts to identify those responsible for carrying out the attacks, but the US and its allies, including Britain and France, dismissed the initiative. These countries insisted on proving that chemical weapons were used in the country, but did not want to identify those responsible for the attacks, the minister said.
Western countries have accused Damascus of using chemical weapons on August 21st in the town of Huta. On the other hand Syrian authorities blame the rebels for carrying out the attack that involved toxic chemicals.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but it lacks any conclusion and does not point out the real forces behind the attacks.
http://indian.ruvr.ru/news/2013_09_30/US-UK-and-France-prevented-Syria-from-unmasking-chemical-weapon-perpetrators-Syrian-Foreign-Minister-9268/
30/9/13
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| Walid Almoualem, Deputy Prime Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic. UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras |
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Syria: We’re fighting rebels who eat human hearts...
ReplyDeleteForeign Minister Moallem also tells UN General Assembly that world powers blocked move to name users of chemical weapons.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Syria’s foreign minister claimed Monday that his government is fighting a war against al-Qaeda-linked militants who eat human hearts and dismember people while they are still alive, then send their limbs to family members.
Walid al-Moallem, addressing world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, also charged that the US, Britain and France had blocked the naming of the real perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
He claimed “terrorists” fighting the regime in the civil war are being supplied with chemical weapons, but he did not name specific nations accused of supplying them.
President Barack Obama told the UN last week that it was President Bashar Assad’s regime that was behind a chemical weapons attack in August that killed hundreds in the Damascus suburbs and brought threats of a US strike......http://www.timesofisrael.com/syria-were-fighting-rebels-who-eat-human-hearts/
30/9/13
At UN, Syrian FM compares country's civil war to 9/11...
ReplyDeleteIn UNGA speech, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem says 'terrorists from more than 83 countries are engaged in the killing of our people and our army under the appeal of global Takfiri jihad.'
Syria's foreign minister on Monday compared what he described as an invasion of foreign terrorists across his country to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
In a speech to the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem also said that "terrorists from more than 83 countries are engaged in the killing of our people and our army under the appeal of global Takfiri jihad."
The United Nations says more than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-1/2 year civil war. The uprising began in March 2011 when the government tried to crush pro-democracy protests. Now more than half of Syria's 20 million people need aid.
"The people of New York have witnessed the devastations of terrorism, and were burned with the fire of extremism and bloodshed, the same way we are suffering now in Syria," Moualem said, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
"How can some countries, hit by the same terrorism we are suffering now in Syria, claim to fight terrorism in all parts of the world, while supporting it in my country?" he said.
Assad's government accuses Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Britain, France and the United States of arming, financing and training rebel forces in Syria.
Moualem dismissed the idea that there are moderate rebels in Syria, which Western nations say are the ones they intend to support. .....http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.549749
30/9/13
Turkey obstacle to Syria peace conference, says Syrian FM...
ReplyDeleteSyrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has said the planned Geneva peace conference “cannot succeed” unless regional countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar “refrain from supplying, arming, financing, smuggling” the rebels.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad frequently accuses Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Britain, France and the United States of arming, financing and training rebel forces in Syria. Al-Moallem also said that “terrorists from more than 83 countries are engaged in the killing of our people and our army” under the appeal of global jihad.
“There is no civil war in Syria, but it is a war against terror that recognizes no values, nor justice, nor equality, and disregards any rights or laws,” al-Moallem said in a speech to the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 30.
Meanwhile, Russia expressed doubt Oct.1 that Western nations can persuade Syrian opposition representatives to take part in an international peace conference in time for it to take place in mid-November.
The doubts by Damascus’s most important ally followed remarks in which the international envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said the target date of mid-November was “not 100 percent certain” and cited disunity among rebel forces.
“Until recently we hoped our Western partners, who undertook to bring the opposition to the conference, could do it quite quickly, but they were unable to do it quickly, and I don’t know whether they will be able to do so by mid-November,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
U.N. Security Council powers hope it can be held in mid-November. Lavrov said it must be organized soon because “radicals and jihadists are strengthening their positions” in Syria. “The task is to not lose any more time, and to bring to the negotiating table with the government those opposition groups that ... think not about creating a caliphate in Syria or just seizing power and using it at their will, but about the fate of their country,” Lavrov said after talks with Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Meanwhile, a chemical disarmament team crossed into Syria Oct.1 to begin the daunting task of inventorying the country’s arsenal of the banned weapons in readiness for its destruction.....http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-obstacle-to-syria-peace-conference-says-syrian-fm.aspx?pageID=238&nID=55491&NewsCatID=352
1/10/13
Syria’s al-Assad playing for time, will eventually go: Swedish FM Carl Bildt....
ReplyDeleteSwedish Foreign Minister Bildt says al-Qaeda worries may win Syrian president some time, but eventually al-Assad will have to go. ‘I don’t think it’s going to help him in the end,” the foreign minister adds.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is playing on the concerns of the international community about the presence of al-Qaeda in the country, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has said.
However, Bildt told the Hürriyet Daily News on Oct. 10 that this method would not work. “No, I don’t think that [it will work] … I mean, al-Assad is clearly playing on it. But I don’t think it’s going to help him at the end of the day. But it’s going to be when we move to the post al-Assad phase in Syria, no question is going to be made to challenge what needs to be dealt with,” he said.
Bildt said he agreed with Turkey’s concerns that the recent deal between Russia and the U.S. on eliminating chemical weapon arsenals of Syria could undermine the crimes committed by the Syrian regime.
“But I think it was very important that we caught a deal,” he said. “I think that it was a complicated deal in the sense that the deal with all of these chemical weapons in a fairly short time period is going to be difficult. But I think it will happen, if it happens exactly according to the time schedule.”
Everyone should be satisfied that there is a significant commitment by all of the main actors to get rid of the chemical weapons in Syria, the Swedish foreign minister added.
“Because, otherwise, you could foresee a scenario where the regime using chemical weapons but with the continued collapse of Syria these chemical weapons could end up anywhere. So I think it is an important thing to get rid of them,” Bildt said......http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrias-al-assad-playing-for-time-will-eventually-go-swedish-fm-carl-bildt.aspx?pageID=238&nID=56131&NewsCatID=351
12/10/13
Syrian opposition group refuses to attend Geneva peace talks...
ReplyDeleteAl Arabiya
The main Syrian opposition group within the Syrian National Coalition said Sunday it would not attend a proposed peace conference in Geneva and would quit if the whole coalition participated.
“The Syrian National Council, which is the biggest bloc in the Coalition, has taken the firm decision... not to go to Geneva, under the present circumstances (on the ground),” Council president George Sabra told Agence France-Presse.
“This means that we will not stay in the Coalition if it goes” to the peace talks in Geneva, he added.
He said the SNC will not negotiate before the fall of the regime amid the ongoing suffering of Syrians on the ground, according to AFP.
The international community has been pushing for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Syrian opposition to hold peace talks dubbed "Geneva II" to find a political solution to the conflict.
The meeting has been delayed for months, but Russia and the U.S. have been discussing potentially holding the peace conference by mid-November.
The Syrian opposition though has said it will not negotiate until Assad’s regime steps down.
(With AFP)
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/10/13/Key-Syrian-opposition-group-rejects-peace-talks-.html
13/10/13