Al-Jaafari: Having a WMD-Free Middle East Unattainable without Occupation Joining of NPT

New York, (ST)-Having a WMD-free Middle East region is unattainable without Israel’s joining of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and without putting the Israeli nuclear facilities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Syria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari has underscored, urging the UN member states to work for evacuating the Middle East region from all Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Al-Jaafari’s remarks were made on Wednesday during the seventieth session of the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security.

  He said that certain nuclear countries, some of them are permanent Security Council members, have for decades supplied Israel with nuclear technology and kept protecting the Israeli nuclear exception and by doing so they helped Israel manufacture and produce nuclear weapons that pose serious threat to the security of the Middle East and the entire world.

He regretted the scandalous failure to reach consensus at the Security Council on the final statement of the NPT Review Conference in 2015, pointing out that the United States, Britain and some countries and influential parties, who were presumed to be sponsors of international peace and security, used the veto to protect Israel’s nuclear interests and cover its violations of international legitimacy resolutions.

Al-Jaafari stressed that Syria will continue to be committed to the NPT and to affirm the right of the NPT member states, including Iran, to get advanced nuclear technology and use it in peaceful purposes in cooperation with the IAEA.

The Syrian diplomat said the Syrian government believed that “using WMD including chemical weapons, is immoral and it is completely rejected and condemned by Syria”. He pointed out that late in 2013, Syria accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and destroy its chemical program starting from its belief in seeking a WMD-free Middle East, particularly the nuclear weapon.

Al-Jaafari also said that the illicit trafficking of the small and medium weapons shows the involvement of certain countries in conveying those weapons to the terrorist groups and mercenaries in order to ignite wars and undermine stability in some countries.

He added that the ongoing events in Syria have proved the fact that supplying terrorist groups in Syria with weapons has undermined international security and stability, noting that some countries are openly throwing tons of weapons from the air and within the Syrian lands to fall at the hands of the terrorist organizations, which were classified by the UN Security Council as “terrorist”, to spread destruction and chaos in the country.

Al-Jaafari said those terrorist organizations, on top of which are the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant” (ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra and the so-called Jaish al-Fateh, and other terrorist groups are fighting the Syrian state, people, culture and civilization on behalf of their masters in the region and the West.

“These terrorist organizations are receiving different kinds of weapons, including the chemical weapons in addition to lethal and non-lethal ammunition from UN member States, including some Security Council members,” al-Jaafari clarified, stressing that supplying terrorism with arms is a flagrant violation of the UN resolutions relating to disarmament, non-proliferation and counter-terrorism.

Concluding his statement, Al-Jaafari urged unifying all efforts to combat terrorism and pressure that parties which supply terrorists with weapons, money, training and shelter to stop their support to the terrorists.

Hamda Mustafa