Syria calls on Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities in fighting terrorism

DAMASCUS – The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry sent two identical letters to the UN Secretary-General and the head of the Security Council on the terrorist attacks which took place in Lattakia on Tuesday and resulted in the death and injuring of a large number of civilians.

In the letters, the Ministry said that on Tuesday November 10, 2015, members of Jabhat al-Nusra and “Ahrar al-Cham Movement” terrorist organizations fired two Katyusha rockets at residential neighborhoods in Lattakia city, with the first rocket landing in al-Awqaf neighborhood and the other in front of Tishreen University during peak crowded hours, claiming the lives of over 23 civilians and injuring more than 40 others, in addition to damaging public and private properties, SANA reported.

 The Ministry said that this terrorist crime is the latest in a series of heinous terrorist crimes that have been targeting Syrian cities and villages and innocent civilians for more than four years, noting that such indiscriminate crimes could not have happened without the persistence of Western countries in the Security Council in averting their eyes from terrorist crimes, nor could they have happened without the generous support, funds, weapons, and munitions provided to terrorists by states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, adding that these sides’ funding and arming of terrorists from over 100 nationalities has become known to everyone.

The letters went on to elaborate that the atrocities committed by terrorists in Syria are enabled by certain states’ indifference towards the networks that recruit terrorists and by Erdogan’s government which facilitates their illegal entry into Syria.

The Ministry stressed that as the Syrian government reiterates its determination to combat terrorism and protect its people, it once more calls upon the Security Council to denounce the terrorist attack on Lattakia and to shoulder its responsibilities in fighting terrorism by implementing its resolutions on counter-terrorism.

The letters concluded by asserting the need for states to fulfill their moral and legal obligations to combat terrorism and by affirming the need for the Security Council to take immediate deterrent steps against the states that sponsor and support terrorism so that security and peace in the region and the world may be preserved.