Arming ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ has dangerous repercussions on region and world, says Lahham
GENEVA,(ST)_Speaker of the People’s Assembly [Parliament] has said that the main goal of supporting the ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ is to fuel violence in Syria, explaining how the US-led coalition against terrorism breaches the UN resolution No.2170.
Mohammad Jehad al-Lahham made clear that training and arming the ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ violates the international law and aims at reproducing armed groups to fuel violence in Syria.
“Training and arming Syrian opposition portends endless chaos and long terrorist war that would create new Daesh [IS or ISIL] groups which would be more dangerous to the region and the world,” the Speaker said today in a speech before the 131st session of the International Parliament Union’s General Assembly.
He indicated that Syria, over the past four years, has called on the international community to realize the consequences of supporting terrorists and terrorism in the region.
“When the Syrian government was talking about Takfiri international terrorism that is feeding on corpses of children, elderly and women and destroying holy shrines, it was said that it is just an imagination,” al-Lahham said.
But, he added, everyone realized now that what the Syrian government was taking about was true and most of the fighters which they [western and some regional countries] were supporting belong to the IS [terror organization known as Daesh in Arabic] and al-Nusra Front.
Blatant violation
As for the US-led international coalition fighting terrorism, Al-Lahham said: “The US Administration, which is leading a coalition against the Daesh [IS] and al-Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria, has built the coalition outside the frame of the United Nation Security Council, violating the resolution 2170.”
“The US administration has excluded Russia, China, Iran and Syria from the coalition despite the fact that the resolution 2170 stresses that defeating terrorism requires participation of all international and regional organizations and countries,” the Speaker added.
He wondered if there is an article in the resolution 2170 allowing a country to train armed groups called ‘moderate opposition’ to fight the Syrian Arab army. “This is a blatant violation of the international law and the UN resolutions,” al-Lahham said.
The Speaker reiterated that the way to effective counter-terrorist action necessitates confronting extremist thought, implementing the relevant UN resolutions, putting stop to media campaigns that fuel violence and hatred, helping the countries hit by terrorism and supporting political solutions to internal problems through urging parties to take part in dialogue instead of arming oppositions and fueling extremism and violence.
Basma Qaddour