Global Research

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Bashar Jaafari delivered yet another speech at the UNSC focussing on the  unfolding situation in Idlib,

The English transcript of his presentation is indicated below. 

The video includes the full statement in Arabic with English translation subtitles

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English translation transcript of the Dr. Jaafari’s statement:

Thank you, Mr. President,

This meeting comes in a timely manner, in order to allow us and a number of other countries to put the Security Council in the picture of terrorist attacks by armed terrorist groups from Idlib against the neighboring towns and villages of Aleppo, Northern Hama, and the northern Latakia countrysides.

When I talk about the attacks, I would like to point out that the last of these attacks was the massacre carried out by these groups two days ago in the village of al-Wadihi in the southern countryside of Aleppo, a crime that resulted in the killing of 12 civilians and injuring more than 16 others while participating in a wedding in the village.

The lives of the inhabitants of this village, which was safe and lead a normal life, were transformed into a state of terror that can hardly be described by the fall of missiles launched by the terrorists of Nusra Front, who are supported by Erdogan’s Turkish regime… The bodies of the martyrs and the wounded, mostly women and children, were scattered in the alleys of the village. They also caused extensive damage to homes, private and public property, including the health center and the village mosque.

This barbaric crime comes as part of a series of crimes committed by these terrorist groups led by the HTS terrorist organization, which is Nusra Front organization, which is on the Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations and entities, being Al-Qaeda Organization in Syria, these crimes must be clearly and inexplicably condemned by the Security Council.

Mr president,

Here are some of the crimes that led to the death of dozens and injuring hundreds of innocent civilians, including many women and children, I will limit the talk here about the civilian victims and will not mention the military victims:

• The targeting of the town of al-Sakilibiya and the town of Ein al-Krum and the village of Bilhsein on May 25 with dozens of shells.
• The targeting of the cities of Silhib and al-Siklibiya on 26 May with more than 30 rockets.
• Targeting the town of Qamhani on 29 and 31 of May with a number of rockets.
• Targeting the towns of the Qalaat Al-Madiq, Karakat, and Shat-ha in the northern and northwest of Hama countryside with dozens of shells and missiles.
• Targeting multiple areas in the province of Aleppo and its countryside frequently with dozens of rockets and missiles.
• Targeting the city of Jablah with several missiles.
• The targeting of the city of Mhardeh frequently, and the most recent was the dawn of this day with dozens of rockets.

This is in addition to the continuous targeting of the positions of the Syrian Arab Army and the locations of the allied Russian forces, especially the Hmeimim airport, with rockets and booby-trapped drones.

As some like to ask questions, a good question arises for you and for all of us: Who provides these terrorists with all these weapons? Where do these weapons come from? By parachutes? from another planet? Or from member states of this Council and outside it? Who provides terrorists with rockets, tanks, missiles, and mines? Where does all this momentum of weapons and terrorists come from? Did not we get 100,000 foreign terrorists through our border with Turkey? How many times have we mentioned this in this Council and outside it? A subcommittee of the Security Council confirmed the validity of our statement that 101 Member States of this Organization are exporting pure terrorism to Syria.

Mr. President,

The statements we heard in this room today indicate that there is a common realization that there is a problem to be dealt with in Idlib, that’s what we understood from the talk of the colleagues that there is a problem in Idlib. The Syrian Idlib of course, I am not talking about an Idlib in Florida and I am not talking about an Idlib in Britain or about an Idlib in Germany. I am talking about the SYRIAN Idlib.

I explained to you earlier on May 17, last month, in detail that the problem was the continuation of the Turkish regime and its accomplices by providing various forms of support to terrorist groups and this (Turkish) regime’s abrogation of its commitments under the de-escalation agreement and the Understandings of Astana and Sochi.

This has allowed HTS terrorist organization (Nusra Front), which includes tens of thousands of foreign terrorists in its ranks, including of course more than 15 thousand Europeans, which allowed the HTS terrorist organization control completely on the city of Idlib and some of its neighboring areas in north-west Syria and create a terrorist outpost that blackmails the Syrian state and take hundreds of thousands Civilians as human shields, committing the most heinous crimes against them, spreading death and destruction, and confiscating civilian facilities, including hospitals and schools, and turning them into military barracks and centers for the detention, torture and killing of those who reject extremist Takfiri and its retard rulings.

By the way, when some colleagues are talking, Mr. Lowcock was unfortunately one of them, and Mrs. de Carlo, I do not know where they got their information, but when they said there were 27 medical facilities in Idlib that were targeted, actually they said hospitals, I would like to tell all of you that Damascus, the Syrian capital, where 8 million people live in has 8 public hospitals only, and 9 public hospitals in Damascus countryside, this means 9 + 8 = 17, meaning Damascus, the capital, where 8 million people live, has only 17 public hospitals, add to it 10 private hospitals, if you like, the number does not reach 30 hospitals. Aleppo has 11 public hospitals, add to them another 10 private hospitals: 21 hospitals in Aleppo, which is the second largest city in Syria, in which 5 million people live.

And when we come to talk about Idlib, Idlib has 4 public hospitals only, we add 4 more private hospitals, the total is 8 hospitals. Where do these figures come from that there are 27 hospitals targeted in Idlib? Let us know and give us the sources from which they draw this information.

I tell you here publicly that what has been said is misleading and false whatever the source that provides this information is a misguided source. There are no 27 hospitals in Idlib. Huh, now for our colleague the British Ambassador, if the White Helmets have opened a room in a cellar in a building, where it launches missiles and shells from, this is another thing, this is not a hospital. This is not a hospital, this is called a makeshift medical facility. This is a hallucination and a cinema on the ground when they call it a hospital. It is not a hospital. It is a room they open in a cellar in one of the buildings used for bombing civilians and the Syrian Arab army from.

Another scandal, as human feelings are overflowing today, do you know that after 8 years of imposing sanctions, or what they call unilateral coercive measures, because they are not imposed by you and are not legal, after 8 years, and with such overflowing human feelings we heard today, the United States and the European Union prohibit the export of medical devices such as the MRI and CT Scan to Syria until today, and the surgical procedures required by Syrian doctors for surgical operations? What is this overflowing human feeling that prevents the export of medical devices such as MRI and CT Scan and surgical thread for surgical operations? This is a blemish, it is a defect, the least what we can describe it, if not a crime, and OCHA does not see of course, and Ms. de Carlo does not see the Humanists pen carriers do not see this.

The Syrian government and its allies do NOT target hospitals or schools, at all, because these are our hospitals and our schools.

Mr president,

The implementation of the principles of international law, the provisions of the Charter and the decisions of this Council concerning the fight against terrorism requires, in this case, support the efforts of the Syrian State and its allies in combating terrorism and to build a partnership with it as the party concerned to end the existence of terrorism in Syria and improve the humanitarian situation in general, instead of calling for these show-off sessions, and spread misleading information and to charge accusations against my country and its allies, in order to rescue the terrorist groups and obstruct the legal measures taken by the Syrian government to protect its citizens and rid them of the control of terrorist organizations which use them as human shields.

What is required is a complete departure from attempts to undermine the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, and from any attempts to exploit the crisis to serve the destructive agendas of some States and their clients, and to desist from selective policies and systematically biased approaches that are unequivocally reflected in some Member States ignoring of the crimes the terrorist organizations are committing, and ignoring the role of the known countries that support terrorism, as well as the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the International Coalition in Raqqa, Deir Al-Zour, Alhajin and Al-Baghouz, which were mentioned by my dear colleague the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, and in other areas in my country as well as the detention of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians by the American occupation forces in Al-Rukban Camp. Al-Rukban camp, of course, is Syrian land. We repeat it for the 100th time: Al-Rukban camp is a Syrian land occupied by US forces, where it sponsors a terrorist group called Maghaweer Al-Thawra. This faction collects 100 thousand Syrian Lira from each Syrian civilian who wants to leave the Rukban camp, extortion money, with the knowledge of the US forces, of course. a father, his wife and five children have to pay 700,000 Syrian Liras, only to get out of the camp.

Mr. President,

Ending the suffering of the Syrians in Idlib and other Syrian areas requires:

First: Addressing the main causes of the suffering of the Syrians: the policies of the governments of the state sponsors of terrorism and the practices of their armed terrorist organizations and the continuing crimes committed by the so-called international coalition and its proxy militias, including the deliberate burning of wheat and barley crops.

Since we’re talking about the burning of agricultural crops of wheat and barley, two or three days ago an announcement was issued in Turkey in Arabic addressed to Syrian farmers indicates the willingness of the Turkish government to buy their wheat and barley in Turkish Lira, what is not burned is sold to Turkey at a quarter of its price. Then they tell us that we are falsely accusing Turkey of wrongdoingس, we are falsely accusing Erdogan’s regime of wrongdoings, no, it’s not false accusations, no.

The Turkish regime has absolutely no regards to the neighborhood value If it had an atom of political wisdom, this regime would have been thinking about the future, let alone the international law and the agreements governing our good neighborly relations with Turkey. This regime must look to the future. We and they are in this region by virtue of geography and history, the Erdogan regime should not open up its border with Syria for hundreds of thousands of foreign terrorists and the smuggling of all kinds of weapons into Syria, including the chemical weapon, which they brought from Benghazi (Libya) through Istanbul and then to Aleppo, Khan al-Asal, the story I told you about before, it was transferred by a Syrian terrorist working for The Turkish intelligence, his name is Haitham Kassar, all of this is mentioned in official letters with you, 800 official letters full of information we sent you, but some do not want to read.

Second: Ending the illegal presence of US and Turkish forces on the territories of the Syrian Arab Republic and ending the suffering of millions of civilians in the areas controlled by these forces.

Third: the immediate and unconditional lifting of the illegal unilateral coercive measures imposed on the Syrian people, which constitute economic terrorism and collective punishment for the Syrian people.

Fourth: To put an end to the deliberate and systematic politicization of humanitarian affairs and attempts to exploit it by some States for purposes that are in total contradiction with the principles of humanitarian action.

Fifth: Supporting the efforts of the Syrian state in the process of reconstruction, reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism, which is opposed by the USA, Britain, France and some other countries, these countries are against the reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism in Syria and I leave for you to figure out the reason behind that. To facilitate the safe and dignified return of the Syrian displaced to their homeland and to direct donor pledges to serve this objective.

In conclusion, Mr. President,

Despite the adoption by this Council of more than 46 resolutions on the combating terrorism, and the passing of nearly 9 years on the terrorist war waged against my country Syria and the exposure of the dimensions of this war and the role played by the governments of some countries to enrich and prolong it, in spite of all this, some members of this council, and outside of it, are still investing in terrorism and see in it a partner to target the Syrian state, instead of building a partnership with the Syrian state to combat terrorism. I also leave you the trouble to draw the conclusion from this.

I reiterate here that the Syrian Government will not bow down to the terrorist war imposed on it and will not allow the endangerment of the lives of its citizens.

The Syrian Government will continue to exercise its sovereign and constitutional right and to implement the provisions of the Charter and the principles of international law in defending its land and its citizens, combating terrorism and ending the illegal foreign presence on all the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Government of my country is committed to achieving a political solution in which the Syrians, alone, will decide their future and choices through the Syrian-Syrian dialogue and with Syria’s leadership without external interference and guaranteeing the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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