Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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New York, SANA – Acting chargé d’affaires of the UN permanent delegation at the UN, Minister Advisor Abdullah Hallaq, said that the Syrian Arab Army and its allies are continuing to liberate areas controlled by terrorist groups, stressing that all aggressor military forces will leave Syrian territory.
In a speech on Friday during a Security Council session on the humanitarian situation in Syria, Hallaq affirmed that the Syrian government is the most committed to providing humanitarian aid to all citizens across Syria and to cooperating with the UN and humanitarian partners.
He said that the Syrian government is bound by the constitution and the law to rid civilians of terrorists who have been using them as human shields for years, and that achievements in liberating Syrian territories from terrorists are continuing on daily basis with the aid of Syria’s true friends.
Hallaq called for providing more support to Syria, stressing the need to coordinate with Syrian national sides, not the so called “local councils” that are fabricated entities affiliated with terror organizations, or separatist sides that some are still trying to promote.
He said that contrary to what some try to promote, the successful military operations of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies against terrorists have reduced the suffering of civilians, including those in areas classified by the UN and besieged or difficult to reach, as these operations facilitated humanitarian access to these areas.
Hallaq asserted that the unilateral economic measures taken against Syria by the EU and the US is the main obstacle hindering providing the Syrians’ basic needs and improving their humanitarian and livelihood situation, citing the recent UN Special Rapporteur’s report on the effect of sanctions on human rights underlined the danger posed by these measures on humanitarian response sectors in Syria.
He noted that the operations carried out by the Syrian state in the south of Syria showed that certain governments and sides didn’t care about the displaced Syrians in Jordan; they only cared about protecting the terrorist groups in that area, specifically the “White Helmets” who are an arm of Jabhat al-Nusra terror organization, and who fabricated evidence to mislead the international public opinion about the allegations of using chemical weapons in Syria and to justify attacks on Syria.
Hallaq said the UN needs to adopt a new course in dealing with the humanitarian situation in Syria that is objective, transparent, and neutral, in order to regain the trust of the Syrian government, adding that this is difficult in light of the constant efforts to distort facts about the Syrian state’s work to provide the needs of its citizens and in light of certain states’ support for terrorists and exploitation of the humanitarian situation in Syria to serve their own political agendas.
He noted that the statement by the UN Secretary-General’s representative on children in armed conflicts, which contained accusations against the Syrian government, deliberately ignored all the information provided by the Syrian government which reveals that the suffering of children in Syria is due to the practices of terrorist groups.
Hallaq said the statement and the related report rely on questionable information from sources affiliated with terrorists, and that the claims in the report are debunked by testimonies of civilians who were evacuated by the Syrian Arab Army from areas besieged by terrorists for years.
He stressed that the Syrian government rejects firmly all references to so-called “documented cases” of child soldiers attributed to it, adding that if these allegations are true, then why weren’t any detailed information provided despite the repeated requests?
Hallaq reiterated the Syrian government’s request for an investigation into the fate of the children abducted following the terrorist bombing in al-Rashidin area in Aleppo province on April 15th 2017, a bombing which had targeted buses transporting civilians from Kefraya and al-Foua’a. He said that the Syrian government has information about the presence of 32 of those abducted children in Reyhanlı area in the south of Turkey, while the rest are in Atme camp.
In response to representatives of some of the Council member states, Hallaq said the day when all aggressor military forces leave Syria is not far away, voicing surprise that the Security Council hasn’t issued any unilateral position or reaction to the massacre committed by Daesh in Sweida two days ago.
Hazem Sabbagh
