Syria Rejects Canada’s Draft Resolution on Syria: al-Jaafari

NEW YORK, (ST)- Syria rejects the draft resolution proposed by Canada to the UN General Assembly on ceasing combat operations in Syria and urges the UNGA’s presidency to get the view point of the Assembly’s legal consultant in this regard, Syria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations Bashar Al-Jaafari has announced.

Al-Jaafari, who made the remarks during a UNGA session on Friday dedicated for discussing the situation in Aleppo and for voting on Canada’s draft resolution which calls for the cessation of combat activities in Aleppo without terrorists’ withdrawal from it, said “voting in favor the Canadian draft indicates the continuity of exploiting the suffering of the Syrian people and of providing support for terrorists.”

  He went on to say that “Canada’s delegation and its partners have violated article No. 12 of the UN Charter which prevents discussing any file without a request by the Security Council.

He pointed out that Canada’s delegation, which claims keenness on the Syrian people, has blocked a resolution condemning the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan and the Israeli settlement building activities there.

“The government of the Canadian delegation has participated from the very beginning in the so-called “International Coalition against Daesh” despite the fact that this coalition was established illegally and it has been violating the Syrian sovereignty and destroying the country’s infrastructure,” al-Jaafari said.

He added that the acts of the Washington-led coalition have proved that it is a coalition against the Syrian people not against “Deash” terrorist organization.

He went on to note that the coalition targeted Syrian Arab Army positions that were preventing ISIS from expanding, asserting that the true goal of the coalition’s airstrikes is to prevent the Iraqi and Syrian armies from closing in on terrorists.

“It seems that the US administration doesn’t learn from its mistakes, and today it insists on providing armed terrorist groups with all sorts of weapons including anti-air missiles, then they talk about security of civilian airplanes!” Syria’s Representative added.

According to al-Jaafari, the policy adopted by some UNGA member states pose serious threat to the credibility of the United Nations and its effectiveness in tackling international crises, noting that Canada’s delegation’s practices have proved the huge gap between theory and application concerning countries sovereignty, safety and territorial integrity.

SANA reported that Al-Jaafari pointed out that the Canadian government, which claims to care for the interests of the Syrian people, along with many of those who adopted the resolution, impose unilateral economic sanctions that harm the Syrian people and limit the Syrian government’s ability to provide the citizens’ daily needs, asserting that Syrians never delegated those who presented this resolutions or anyone else to talk about their suffering, a suffering exacerbated by these same states that submitted the resolution.

“Before calling for holding this meeting and submitting the draft resolution, the Canadian delegation and its partners should have listened to the harrowing tales accounts about the crimes of terrorist organizations that were told by tens of thousands of our people who were saved by the Syrian Army and its allies in Aleppo city during the past few days, ” he said, adding that they also should have acknowledged the achievement made by the Syrian Army and its allies who liberated more than 100,000 Syrian citizens from the clutches of Jabhat al-Nusra and provided them with food, medicine, and shelter.

“The Canadian delegation should have looked at the photos of the bodies of scores of innocent civilians who had tried to flee areas controlled by the terrorists to the areas where the Syrian Army is located, who were killed by those ‘moderate opposition’ members, some of whom have the nationalities of states that sponsor the Canadian draft resolution,” he added.

Syria’s Representative said that the Canadian draft resolution is a game of taking turns played by some delegations in the UN who call for endless meetings and adopt resolutions under various agendas for the sole purpose of supporting and protecting terrorists and pressuring the Syrian government and its allies.

The Russian UN Envoy Vitaly Churkin, on his part, said during the meeting that Russia will vote against the Canadian draft, urging all countries to cooperate with the Syrian government to solve the humanitarian file instead of making accusations against it.  

Hamda Mustafa