Joint Efforts Needed to Combat International Terrorist Threat in Syria –Russian Foreign Ministry

 GENEVA-Joint efforts are needed to combat international terrorist threat in Syria, the Russian delegation to the 33rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council said on Monday.

“It is important to take efforts to strengthen the ceasefire regime. It will require joint efforts against the international terrorist threat coming from ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and illegal armed groups affiliated with al-Nusra,” Alexei Golyatyev, a member of the Russian delegation, said, according to Itar Tass.

 Russia is convinced that lasting improvement of the situation in the humanitarian and human rights sphere in Syria “is impossible without progress in the political settlement process via resumption of intra-Syrian talks,” which should involve “a wide spectrum” of the Syrian “opposition” groups, the Russian diplomat stressed.

The Russian delegation called on the United Nations independent panel probing human rights abuses in Syria to pay special attention to the destructive impacts of unilateral sanctions on the human rights situation in that country. Such sanctions, according to the Russian delegation, “are only redoubling sufferings of the population, first of all, of its most vulnerable categories: women, children, the elder, the sick, disabled people and internally displaced persons.”

“We believe that human rights rhetoric should not be used as a tool to obtain unilateral political advantages,” Golyatyev said, adding that the United Nations Human Rights Council’s biased resolutions on Syria are “counterproductive.” He called on the initiators of such resolutions “to look at the situation realistically and stop unfair use of the Council for their own political purposes.”

H.M