Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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New York, SANA – Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari held the Qatari, Saudi and Turkish intelligence services directly responsible for funding the terrorist organizations in Syria and coordinating with Jubhat al-Nusra for kidnapping personnel serving in the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
43 Fijian UN personnel were kidnapped by what the UN recently described as “armed elements” . Jabhat al-Nusra, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the Security Council, claimed responsibility for the abduction. Clashes also broke out between Filipino troops and the terrorist groups.
Early last year, a number of Filipino UN personnel operating within the UNDOF, which monitors a disengagement accord established in 1974 between Syria and the Israeli enemy which occupies the Syrian Golan, were also kidnapped by armed terrorist groups in two separate incidents.
“Israel is the most interested in having peacekeepers evacuated from the occupied Golan so as to be left without international monitoring,” al-Jaafari told a press conference held on Tuesday.
He noted that Syria has handed official documents and facts to the UN Secretary General that prove the involvement of the governments of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan in supporting Jabhat al-Nusra and the other terrorist organizations.
The information even included the phone number of the Qatari officer who was “coordinating for the kidnapping of the Fijian UNDOF personnel, al-Jaafari noted.
“The UN General Assembly however did not lift a finger regarding that,” he lamented.
The Syrian Ambassador to the UN reiterated that Syria has repeatedly warned of the intentions of Israel, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia “which were particularly aimed at encouraging the armed terrorist organizations to enter the disengagement area with the aim of creating a buffer zone similar to that created by Israel and its agents in South Lebanon, which was liberated by the [Lebanese] Resistance in 2000.”
Having this issue in mind for the past two years, al-Jaafari said, “we sent dozens of letters to the UN Secretary General, members of the Security Council and the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations in which we pointed out to that issue and warned of the danger of what is going on in the disengagement area, but there wasn’t any response.”
“In one of my statements addressed to the General Assembly on behalf of my government, I officially informed them of the phone number of the Qatari intelligence officer who was giving instructions for kidnapping the Filipino troops the first time,” al-Jaafari noted. “None of the peacekeeping operations members however made any move, neither did the UN Secretary General,” he added.
“It seems that this international organization is riddled with corruption prompted by the Gulf, Qatari and Saudi money,” Syria’s UN Representative said.
He pointed out that the issue of some countries hosting training camps for terrorists who then are sent into Syria has been clearly exposed in media and become the talk of people, media and politicians alike, including those of the Western countries, “which has prompted those who have sponsored terrorism to now race to hold conferences to combat the very terrorism they themselves created.”
Al-Jaafari stressed that those who claim to be combating terrorism do not want to coordinate with the Syrian government or those of Iran, Russia and China “as they don’t realy seek to fight terrorism. Rather they want to use terrorism to interfere further and further in the internal affairs of the region.”
He drew attention to the importance of the statements made by the Libyan Prime Minister two days ago in which he revealed that Qatar had sent warplanes to terrorist groups in Libya, referring also to the Libyan ambassador to the UN who only yesterday at the UN Security Council session “complained of those terrorist groups and grumbled about that fact that two states, whose names he didn’t mention but which we know to be Turkey and Qatar, have been sending weapons to the terrorists in Libya.”
“This has become widely known, and whoever keeps silent on that is an accomplice in terrorism,” al-Jaafari said.
He affirmed that combating terrorism must be done in compliance with the recently issued UN Security Council resolution no. 2170.
“We in Syria have been fighting ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terrorist organization] and terrorism on behalf of the whole world for two years, and we didn’t wait for any international coalition and we will not wait for others to invite us [to the coalition] or coordinate with us,” al-Jaafari stressed.
He went on saying that “There are political contacts on the level of the concerned capitals and there are actions and reactions. We are not alone, as many other countries now share our view that the issue of combating terrorism must be in the framework of the UN according to the resolution no. 2170.”
He wondered at the decision announced recently by the US administration to focus on fighting ISIS and overlooking Jabhat al-Nusra, in violation of the international resolution which called for combating both terrorist organizations.
He also lashed out that the same US decision to fight ISIS in Iraq but not in Syria and strike “ISIS targets” inside Syria without coordination with the Syrian government, wondering “How do you want to fight ISIS in Syria without coordinating with the Syrian government, while at the same time threaten the Syrian government that if it defends its sovereignty, it will be attacked by this or that state?”
Rasha Milhem/Hala Zain/Ruaa al-Jazaeri/Haifa Said
