Al-Lahham at IPU Session: Occupation Source of Chaos, Terrorism and Tension in ME
HANOI- Speaker of the People’s Assembly (PA) Mohammad Jihad al-Lahham has called on all parliaments of the world to pressure Israel as to end its occupation of the Arab territories including the Syrian Golan.
Al-Lahham, who was speaking during the meeting of the 132nd Session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in the Vietnamese Capital Hanoi on Saturday, said “occupation is the source of chaos, terrorism and tension in the Middle East, so putting an end to occupation helps restore security and stability in the entire region.”
The IPU session focused on the role that can be played by parliamentarians in contribution to attaining sustainable development, stability and peace in the world.
Regarding the question of terrorism, the PA Speaker said “terrorism started to hit the Middle East region four years ago under the nightmare called [Arab Spring] and with the help of western and regional support. That so-called Arab Spring turned into a hard winter that caused deep and huge suffering for the peoples of the region and undermined the decades-old achievements of these peoples.”
Late awakening
Al-Lahham added that the world woke up late to see that terrorism has grown and spread in the Mideast region which is the heart of this world.
“Despite this shy awakening and although the Security Council has issued resolutions 2170 and 2178 on fighting the terrorism of the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), al-Nousra Front and other al-Qaeda affiliated groups and on controlling the influx of thousands of foreign fighters across the Turkish and Jordanian borders, the International response to fighting terrorism remained small and associated with wrong policies and the stances of western states as well as neighboring countries were far from commitment to the issue of terrorism fighting,” Al-Lahham said.
He added that “training what is called moderate opposition in Turkey and Jordan with the support of the United States, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is one of the forms of supporting terrorism and chaos in the region and is a blatant violation of the international law and the UN Charter, so it should be condemned by all parliaments of the world and needs to be stopped immediately.”
Cooperation with countries facing terrorism is the way to eliminate this cancer-like phenomenon
The PA Speaker called on the parliaments to adopt decisive stances and pressure their governments and countries “to work seriously within an international strategy for fighting terrorism and stopping the flow of foreign fighters across borders and to cooperate with the countries which are facing terrorism as this is the only way to eliminate the cancer-like phenomenon called terrorism.”
He stressed that “Syria is fighting terrorism in parallel with its efforts to attain national reconciliation. The Syrian government has also proposed a political program for political solution involving all the Syrians and has cooperated with all international initiatives in this respect. In addition, Syria has repeatedly urged the world’s countries to cooperate on fighting terrorism and extremist thinking, but terrorism sponsors and supporters have been announcing their rejection of political settlement. ”
Meetings of the IPU’s 132nd Session will continue till April 1st.
MP Saadeh: Countries supporting terrorism wage electronic war on Syria
In the same context and during the meeting of the Women Parliamentarians Committee, Member of the Syrian People’s Assembly Maria Saadeh made a speech on “electronic war” in which she said that “the cyberspace is a wide notional environment and a basic knowledge means that is necessary to meeting the requirements of the age and the progress of societies, but, at the same time, it is an environment for feeding conflicts, extremism and terrorism that endanger societies.”
Saadeh clarified that there is an evident alliance between the terrorist organizations and the countries which support terrorism and wage real electronic war and practice electronic terrorism to target the Syrian society.
“While these organizations are killing the Syrian people and destroying the infrastructure, the countries which support terrorism open their cyberspace to disseminate terrorism and extremism among young people of different nationalities, urge terrorist attacks and recruit children and women,” The Syrian MP said.
She added that some countries weren’t satisfied by imposing economic sanctions on Syria in violation of UN Charter and human rights, but they kept blocking access to many websites and programs for the Syrian people and that has hindered development in the country.
Hamda Mustafa