Terrorism Would Have been Eliminated if International Community Have Responded to Syria’s Complaints: Al-Jaafari

NEW YORK, (ST)-  Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar Al-Jaafari has stressed that terrorism would have been eliminated and the danger of the return of foreign terrorists to their homelands would have been averted if the international community have responded to Syria’s complaints over the past seven years about the involvement of some governments and intelligence bodies in the flow of foreign terrorists from more than 100 countries into Syria and Iraq.

In a statement at a UN General Assembly session about “the UN Comprehensive Strategy on Combating Terrorism’ al-Jaafari said Syria is concerned more than any other country about the danger of terrorism because the Syrian people have suffered a lot over the past years from new forms of cross-border terrorism.

 He noted the absence of political will by some governments to fight terrorism, saying that instead these governments have used terrorism as a military and political interventionist tool against some other countries.

“Preventing Violent Extremism”

Regarding  the issue of “preventing violent extremism”, al-Jaafari renews Syria’s firm stance which says that it is still impossible to draw clear lines between extremism which has to do with religious or political motives and violent extremism which leads to terrorism.

“You all know that thousands of foreign terrorists, were classified by their countries’ security bodies as dangerous extremists but not “violent”. Those were subjected to different forms of monitoring. However, their “non-violent extremism” didn’t prevent them from becoming foreign terrorist fighters and it didn’t prevent their governments from allowing them to leave to Syria and Iraq. Later some of them return home to carry out terrorist attacks like what happened in Britain, Belgium, France and The United States,” al-Jaafari clarified.

He pointed out that some governments call foreign terrorists in Syria as “moderate opposition” or Jihadists” when they shed the blood of the Syrians, whereas these same governments call them terrorists when they return home.

He recalled a statement made by former French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in 2012 which says that “the French Jihadists are doing well in Syria”.

 Al-Jaafari went on to say that Syria believes that the traditional pattern of reviewing the comprehensive strategy on combating terrorism need to be developed each two years as the mounting danger of terror and the emergence of new forms of terrorism require a collective and serious response away from the political motives of some governments.

Hamda Mustafa