Syria will stand with “any international effort aimed at fighting and combating terrorism” as long as it fully preserves “civilians’ lives, national sovereignty and is carried out according to international accords,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem declared Monday.
In a speech at the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Moallem described ISIS as “an ideology metamorphosed into an organization supported, armed and trained in order to be unleashed like a monster against Syria, Iraq and Lebanon,” stressing on the need to drain its resources “in order for security and stability to prevail in our region and the world.”
He also criticized US plans to train and arm so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels.
“This is a real recipe for the increase of violence and terrorism, shedding of Syrian blood, prolonging of the Syrian crisis and demolishing of the political solution at its basis,” Moallem said.
“This behavior creates a fertile ground for the growth of these terrorist groups that commit the most heinous crimes on the Syrian territory, which requires all of us to seriously and effectively address and eradicate terrorism, and re-establish security and stability in Syria and the region.”
According to Moallem, military strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) should coincide with cutting off sources of funding and support to the extreme militant groups.
“Striking terrorism militarily while some states are continuing their support of terrorist groups will create a whirlpool of which the international community will not exit in decades,” he explained.
“Let us together stop this ideology and its exporters, let us, simultaneously, exert pressure on the countries that joined the coalition led by the United States to stop their support of armed terrorist groups,” Moallem added. “Only then combating terrorism militarily becomes viable.”
At the end of his speech, Moallem called for the lift of the “unethical unilateral coercive economic measures by the United States and the European Union European” which, in his opinion, are worsening the already-miserable living conditions of civilians and are in contradiction with “the rules of international law and the principles of free trade.”
“We call for the lifting of the blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba for decades, as we renew our call to lift and stop all the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and the peoples of other countries such as Iran, DPRK, Venezuela and Belarus,” Moallem concluded.
