Syria Renews Call for Dissolving Illegal US-Led Coalition

DAMASCUS, (ST)- The Syrian Foreign Ministry has called on the Security Council to hold the United States and the countries member in the so-called “US-Led Coalition against Terrorism” accountable for the crimes committed by the coalition against the Syrian civilians and infrastructure.

In two identical letters addressing the UN Chief and President of the Security Council, the ministry urged the countries participating in the coalition to distance themselves from crimes the coalition is committing in their name and to seek dissolving this illegal coalition because it is fighting the force which has really been combating terrorism and it is destroying the infrastructure in Syria and supporting terrorist organizations.

 The government of the Syrian Arab republic has informed the UN and the Security Council via many letters about the coalition’s aggressive acts against the Syrian civilians since its establishment in 2014 and the coalition has acknowledged through official statements that its airstrikes, which were launched under the pretext of fighting terrorism, have caused the killing and wounding of thousands of Syrians including women, children and elderly, yet it continued its crimes, said the ministry in the its letters.

The ministry clarified that on August 1, 2017 the US-led Coalition killed 60 civilians in a new aggression on the villages and towns of Deir Ezzor eastern countryside.  It said the coalition warplanes of the illegal international coalition carried out several raids on citizens’ houses in al-Kamsheh, al-Shuweit, al-Dweira and al-Ashara areas in the eastern countryside of Deir- Ezzor province, pointing out that the aggression caused a massacre that claimed the lives of 60 civilians, most of them women and children, wounded tens of others and caused heavy material damage to the houses.

The ministry referred to the resolutions adopted by the Security Council and UN bodies and that ban targeting civilians, hospitals, schools, as well as medical and food aid convoys by any country, asking why the Security Council hasn’t yet held the United States and the coalition’s member countries accountable for the crimes they are committing against the Syrian civilians and infrastructure.

The ministry added that the Syrian Arab Republic renewed its call on the countries member in the coalition to distance themselves from the crimes perpetrated by the coalition in their name and to hurry in dissolving this coalition because it is targeting the force which has really been fighting terrorism.

Fighting terrorism necessitates respecting international law, not burring the international humanitarian law with the corpses of innocent people and the debris of the infrastructure built by those same people, said the ministry, urging the Security Council not to keep silent over the crimes of the coalition because this will make peoples lose confidence in the United Nations which was originally established to keep international peace and security.

Hamda Mustafa