Al-Jaafari: Those Who Seek Dialogue Don’t Set Preconditions

New York, (ST) – Syria’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari has stressed that the way the humanitarian situation in Syria is highlighted doesn’t accurately reflect the real situation on ground as some Security Council members are still ignoring key facts and don’t recognize the Syrian government’s cooperation with international humanitarian organizations.

Al-Jaafari’s remarks came during a press conference held on Wednesday following a closed Security Council session on the situation in Syria.

“The Syrian government has allowed international Non-Government Organizations to reach places in need of humanitarian help and gave licenses to more than a hundred Syrian Non Government Organizations to work in distributing humanitarian assistance inside the Syrian territories without discrimination.

Al-Jaafari commented on the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative Zainab Hawa Bangura’s statement on what she called “sexual violence, by saying “these are sexual crimes the perpetrators of which must be tried,” pointing out that the Syrian government formed a national committee to investigate all kinds of crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups.

He referred to an unethical political program being implemented by many countries to exploit the humanitarian situation of the Syrian “refugees” for manipulation purposes through holding humanitarian bazaars, just for the media, to show the world that they are helping the Syrian people while in fact they are not. He pointed out that only small rate of donations allocated for helping the terrorism-affected Syrian families were paid.

Al-Jaafari said that though two years have passed since the events started in Syria, the Security Council is still ignoring key facts on ground. He said the Syrian government had sent some 300 letters to the Security Council providing important information about the reality of events in Syria. He noted that one of the letters provided the UNSC with information about 143 foreign terrorists who entered Syria illegally from the neighboring countries, but the UNSC didn’t take the letter seriously and delayed it three months before it was adopted as an official document.   

He said that “Reuters” and the “New York Times” yesterday published reports on Saudi-funded shipments of advanced weapons which entered Syria across the Jordanian borders and became at the disposal of the armed terrorist groups in Syria, pointing out that the source of these reports are not a Syrian agency and that the Security Council must focus on these facts to know what the real situation in Syria is.

Replying a question on the Saudi, UAE and Kuwaiti support to the opposition, al-Jaafari said many countries which met in Kuwait’s conference are the cause of the Syrian people’s suffering, because they are themselves the same counties which back, finance, arm and train terrorists and present them in their media as “freedom fighters” not as terrorists who seek destroying the Syrian state.

Regarding the so-called “Freind of Syria” conference to be held in Rome, and the reports saying that the American administration promised to provide non lethal aid to the opposition, al-Jaafari stressed that “what Syria needs is objective, real and unbiased assistance in addition to the encouragement of concerned parties to engage themselves in national dialogue with the purpose of solving the crisis in Syria.”

“Those who seek dialogue don’t set preconditions,” al-Jaafari said in his comment on the opposition’s condition that President Al-Assad should leave before dialogue, describing this prerequisite as “naive”.

On dialogue with the armed opposition, al-Jaafari said the Syrian government had tasked the Minister of National Reconciliation with this issue, but the point now is that the opposition should accept the principle of dialogue and peaceful settlement, halt violence and crimes and respect the state’s sovereignty.  

H. Mustafa