Syria Support Movement solidarity with the Syrian people
Ambassador Bashar al-Ja’afari, May 17, to Security Council:
Statement of Ambassador Bashar al-Ja’afar on May 17 to the UN Security Council’s meeting on the situation in the Middle East, specifically in Idlib:
Mr. President,
I would like to start by congratulating you and your friendly country, Indonesia, on your successful management of the work of the Security Council for this month. Your Presidency has maintained the secretariat entrusted with the maintenance of international peace and security and respect for the provisions of the charter, and this has just been reflected in your important statement.
Mr. President,
We are not opposed to the holding of this public meeting, as it gives us the opportunity, and for another number of states, to show the truth of what is going on in the city of Idlib, which is controlled by the terrorist organization, “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.” However, in this context, we would also like to express our reservations on the politicized approaches taken by some member states of the Security Council by frequently requesting the convening of such sessions whenever the Syrian government and its allies take legal and legitimate actions to protect their citizens from the crimes of terrorist groups. These same states have considered their views and committed to silence on war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the illegal “American alliance” in my country in collusion with the militias that serve as its agents.
First of all, the crimes of the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces,” including the full destruction of the city of Raqqa, the killing and displacement of its residents, which was confirmed by Amnesty International recetly when it said, “the attacks of the international alliance have transformed the city of Raqqa to the greatest level of destruction in modern history,” and the horrific crimes experienced by Deir ezZor governorate…which led to the loss of thousands of civilian lives and the displacement of tens of thousands of others, as well as the detentions of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians as human shields in camps.
This selective approach adopted by some member states is a recipe for the support of terrorist groups, undermining the efforts of the Syrian state and its allies to protect the Syrian people and fight terrorism, pitting themselves against it and raising the morale of terrorist groups, providing these groups with protection and political cover, in order to sustain the bleeding and continue the extortion and pressur…
Mr. President,
I think it is useful for all of us, as we discuss the situation in the city of Idlib, to show the reality of the situation there, which can be summed up as follows: First, Idlib is a Syrian province that does not fall in German, nor in Belgium or Kuwait, and, therefore, the Syrian state is concerned with the protection of Idlib and its Syrian population from terrorism. It is the duty of the Security Council to assist the Syrian state in this. The area of Idlib is 6097 square kilometers, 15 times the size of New York City with its five boroughs. We are not talking about guerillas and caves in the mountains of Tora Bora, we are discussing a wide area of Syrian land occupied by terrorists described by your distinguished council as part of Al-Qaida.
Secondly, we all agree that the city of Idlib and some of its neighboring areas in northwest Syria are under the control of the “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” terrorist organization, which is also known as “Al-Nusra,” on the Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations and entities as an arm of Al-Qaida in Syria. This is how they describe themselves, those who control 85% of Idlib.
This terrorist organization has taken advantage of the failure of the Turkish regime to fulfill its obligations under the Astana agreement to reduce escalation and implement the understandings reached in order to impose its control over Idlib and create a terrorist focal point to blackmail the Syrian state. Here I refer, in response to what my fellow Belgian ambassador provided on behalf of humanitarian concerns, I affirm that there is no random attack on civilian Syrian citizens in Idlib. There are military operations carried out by the forces of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies against a terrorist entity. There are military operations to liberate Syrian civilians in Idlib from their use as human hostages by Al-Qaida. The terrorists occupying Idlib would not be able to blackmail with the lives of millions of Syrians, without the support of the Turkish authorities for this terrorist organization or if the Turkish authorities were not ignoring their obligations under the Astana understandings.
This terrorist organization includes tens of thousands of foreign fighters, which is well-known to all of you, some of which are citizens of the members of this Council unfortunately, recruited from all over the world to enlist in multiple terrorist organizations….Notice, all of these organizations have names that have nothing to do with Syria, neither near nor far, but some want to call these at times with the name, “moderate Syrian armed opposition.”
This terrorist organization takes hundreds of thousands of civilians as human shields, committing the most heinous and barbaric crimes, spreading death and destruction, destroying civil infrastructure, including transforming hospitals and schools into military barracks and detention centers for the torture and killing of all those who reject the extreme takfiri ideas and their provisions, labeling them “jahiliyya”, and the worst thing is that the sponsors of these organizations have introduced a criminal propaganda arm called “White Helmets,” to care for them and win their intelligence prizes!
The crimes of this terrorist organization were not limited to the areas it controls, but extended to neighboring towns and civilian areas with the indiscriminate firing of rockets, which lead to the deaths of dozens of civilians, mostly women and children in Aleppo, Hama, Lattakia and other safe Syrian areas. We have not heard any movement from the claimed humanitarian campaigns on this sad matter. There is only one legitimate question that should be answered by all, not three, six or five, a question that is important to everyone inside and outside this Council. That question is: when will the governments of some member states of the Security Council and other countries stop sponsoring terrorism in Syria? US, British and French delegates praised Turkish policy in northwest Syria. This praise alone destroys any credibility for their words.
The agreement to reduce escalation in Idlib is an interim agreement that cannot be sustained. Everyone should realize that maintaining it requires a commitment by the Turkish regime to end its occupation of large areas of Syrian territory and to fulfill its commitments to Russian and Iranian security and to the Kazakh hosts, stop supporting terrorist organizations active in Idlib and end its practices of digging and building the wall.
Mr. President,
In front of this reality, we believe that the question that must be asked is: What options are available to us to confront this terrorist threat? To put it mildly, let us imagine for a moment:
• A terrorist organization affiliated to Al-Qaeda, that includes thousands of foreign terrorist fighters, took control of the German city of Dortmund, committing serious crimes against its inhabitants, and targeted the cities of Düsseldorf, Bonn and Cologne with missiles and rockets.
• A similar organization took control of the Belgian city of Antwerp and is committed to committing serious crimes against its people, targeting the cities of Ghent and Brussels with missiles and rockets.
• A third organization similar took control of the city of Abdali in Kuwait, committed serious crimes against its people, targeting the island of Albubian and Kuwait City with mortars and rockets.
• Imagine a similar fourth organization took control of the city of Yonkers, north of New York, committed serious crimes against its people, and targeted Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens with missiles. We can then ask the Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs to send humanitarian assistance to them.
In front of these scenarios, which we absolutely do not wish to happen, what are the options available to your governments at that time to protect civilians? I think the answer is simple, as no state will ever accept this terrorist threat, endangering the lives of its citizens waiting for the political tricks of some and hypocrisy covered by humanitarian slogans. No country will ever give up its sovereign and constitutional right to defend its land and its people. That right is guaranteed by international law, the Charter and all relevant Security Council resolutions against terrorism.
Mr. President,
Ending the suffering of the Syrians in Idlib requires ending the hypocrisy and politicization, ending the investment in terrorism, manipulating the fates and lives of people, adopting objective and logical approaches based on a full understanding of the facts and options available. At the minimum, this means organizing the return of foreign terrorist fighters who have their nationality rather than playing tricks such as withdrawing their nationality and shamefully, immorally exhorting the Syrian and Iraqui governments to continue to host the terrorists from these countries while bearing the consequences of their terrorism again and again after years of suffering. Here I ask the question of these countries: are you ready to bring back your citizens engaged in terrorist acts in Syria? And to lift the cover on those governments that recruited them, funded them, trained them and facilitated their passage to Syria, involving them in the bloodshed of the Syrians? Are you ready for that?
Mr. President,
We draw attention once more to what we have repeatedly pointed out: the determination of these armed terrorist groups to prepare a dire scenario in order to accuse the Syrian government of using toxic chemical weapons in Idlib.
These groups are working to fabricate evidence and train some of their members to pretend that they have been exposed to toxic substances, to be filmed by known media networks, and then to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of this, repeating a situation that has occurred several times in the past. Although we have sent hundreds of letters to the Secretary-General, the President of the Security Council and the United Nations bodies concerned with the fight against terrorism and the non-proliferation of chemical weapons, we are confident that some in the United ations will not hesitate to adopt the accounts of armed terrorist groups. This will happen because the agendas of power within this organization impose on them to become partners in the process of blackmailing the Syrian Arab Republic and targeting it and its allies who fight terrorism on behalf of all of you.
In conclusion, Mr. President,
Continuing to trade in Syrian blood and the suffering of the Syrian people by reducing what is happening in Syria to a purely humanitarian issue here or there will not dissuade the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, with the support of its allies, from exercising its legal and constitutional duty to combat terrorism and protect its citizens. The humanitarian issue is one thing, the political track is one thing, and the fight against terrorism is quite another.
