Geneva, SANA – Syria denounced the crimes that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization is committing against Iraqi civilians, renewing support for the Iraqi government’s efforts in fighting it.
During a session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) dedicated to discussing ISIS crimes in Iraq, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN office in Geneva Houssam-Eddin Ala demanded that the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is currently holding a session, issue a clear condemnation of the crimes that ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Islamic Front, among other terrorist organizations, are perpetrating in Syria.
Ala warned of the danger posed by Takfiri terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq whose crimes have not spared the UN peacekeeping forces in the Syrian Golan, calling for approaching this emerging situation “with objectivity and comprehensiveness” away from double standards and selectiveness that have stamped the conduct of several UN bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council, since the onset of the crisis in Syria.
Last week, forty-seven soldiers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), the UN peacekeeping force in the Syrian Golan, have been abducted by Jabhat Al-Nusra, a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda.
Syria’s representative underscored the necessity for the Council to do away with its “cumbersome legacy” which consists of as many as 14 unilateral, selective, and biased resolutions that the Council passed, browbeaten by countries involved in supporting terrorism and destabilizing the situation in Syria.
He urged for an anti-terrorism push by implementing the relevant UN resolutions, stressing the importance that countries abstain from arming, funding and harboring terrorists and stop the flow of terrorists and arms to Syria and Iraq.
Iraqi government presses UNHRC to probe ISIS crimes in Syria and Iraq
The Iraqi government has demanded that the UN Human Rights Council probe crimes committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria against civilians in northeastern Syria and in northern and western Iraq.
Iraq has submitted, during the 22nd session of the 47-state human rights body, a draft resolution demanding the formation of a UN fact-finding mission to probe the crimes by ISIS that are equivalent to crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was quoted as saying that ISIS “is not an Iraqi phenomenon” but “a transnational presence that poses an imminent danger for all countries of the world.”
Manal Ismael / Hazem Sabbagh