Syrian FM to UN: 'Terrorists from 83 countries fighting in Syria'

Syrian FM to UN: 'Terrorists from 83 countries fighting in Syria'. (RT).

In his speech to the UN Assembly, Muallem on Monday dismissed the definition of the Syrian conflict as a civil war, saying that the Syrian government is engaged in a “war against terrorism that recognizes no values, nor justice, nor equality, and disregards any rights or laws.”

“Confronting this terror in my country requires the international community to act in accordance with relevant resolutions on countering terrorism, particularly the UNSC resolution No. 1373 of 2001,” he said. 

Muallem said that it’s the terrorist groups, including those linked to Al-Qaeda, who are violating Syrian people’s human rights “on a daily basis.”

Any Syrians who do not share the extremist ideology risk being “killed, slaughtered,” with the women also taken as “captives on the basis of perverted concepts of religion that have nothing to do with Islam,” Syria’s FM said. 

“We are the ones who were targeted by poisonous gases in Khan Al-Assal, near Aleppo,” Muallem asserted, saying that Syria asked the UN inspectors to include in its mandate the ability to determine who used chemical weapons, but that it was omitted due to pressure from the US, the UK and France.

Syria had “waited for five months” for the UN chemical inspectors to arrive, and even before the completion of their work “certain states began beating the drums of war,” Muallem said. He added that Syria was committed to fully implement the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention and cooperate closely with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

The Syrian top diplomat went on to question, whether those countries “supplying terrorists” with weapons would “abide by their legal commitments,” saying there “remains the challenge” they would not do so.

Muallem then accused “regional and Western countries that are well known to all of us” of supplying chemical agents to “terrorists who used poisonous gases” in Syria.

Syria calls for “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,” Muallem said.


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