Syria, 2013

I would like to congratulate Mr. Ashe, the

President of the General Assembly, and his friendly

country, Antigua and Barbuda, on his election as

President at the sixty-eighth session of the General

Assembly. I wish him every success in conducting our

work through his major and neutral role as President of

the Assembly, like that of his predecessor, who avoided

engaging the presidency in special political agendas.

Last year when I addressed the Assembly (see

A/67/PV.19), we were compelled to address many

events that had ravaged our country and our world. We

were full of hope that the scene would change for the

better this year. Unfortunately, the situation remains

the same, and in some parts of the world has even

deteriorated. Many countries continue to face political,

economic and financial crises that exceed their ability

to tackle them on their own. While the international

community looked forward to effective international

efforts to overcome those crises, today we bear witness

to exacerbated and intensified problems.

That exacerbation is due to the hegemony and

dominion that thwart peoples’ capabilities. Such

domination has escalated in a way that blatantly

contradicts the principles of the Charter of the United

Nations and the norms of international law. Instead of

settling regional and international conflicts by peaceful

means, some well-known countries continue to pursue

aggressive policies against certain nations. Political

hypocrisy allows them to intervene in the domestic

affairs of States under the pretext of humanitarian

intervention or the responsibility to protect. When

such aggressive policies do not prove beneficial for

the countries subjected, including my own country,

Syria, those well-known States reveal their true beliefs

and threaten blatant military aggression outside the

mandates of the Security Council and certainly well

beyond any international consensus.

Those same countries impose immoral, illegal

and unilaterally coercive economic measures. In

addition, they maintain paranoid policies aimed at

spreading sedition and turmoil within pluralistic,

harmonious national communities that had previously

lived for hundreds of years in harmony, unity and

understanding. Worst of all, those countries have

launched major, destructive wars under the pretext of

combating terrorism, even as they support terrorism

in my country, in contravention of all United Nations

resolutions and all human and moral values.

I ask the same question I posed last year: Is the

international consensus on combating terrorism a

serious commitment undertaken by States Member of

the Organization, or is it mere rhetoric, written down

but not put into effect by certain countries?

What is happening in my country has become clear

to everyone. Yet some countries do not want to recognize

that Al-Qaida, the most dangerous terrorist organization

in the world, and its many offshoots — including Jabhat

Al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,

the Islamic Brigade and many others — are fighting

in Syria. While scenes of murder, manslaughter and

even the eating of human hearts were seen on television

screens worldwide, that did not affect the conscience of

those who chose to turn a blind eye. In my country, the

heads of innocent civilians have been grilled because

they violated some extremist ideology and held views

that deviate from those of Al-Qaida. In my country,

murderers have dismembered human bodies while

the victims were still alive and sent their limbs to

their families because those citizens were defending a

unified and secular Syria.

In Syria — as in those countries that daily violate

basic human rights to life, livelihood and their own

religious beliefs and political affiliations — any Syrian

citizen who does not belong to that obscurantist takfiri

ideology is doomed to be killed or maimed or to

witness female relatives taken as captives on the basis

of perverted concepts of religion that have nothing to

do with Islam.

There is no civil war in Syria. It is a war against

terror, which does not recognize values, justice or

equality and disregards all human rights and laws.

Therefore, confronting terrorism in my country requires

the international community to act in accordance

with the relevant resolutions on counter-terrorism,

particularly Security Council resolution 1373 (2001).

It must take all necessary and immediate measures to

compel those countries that are known to finance, arm,

train and provide safe haven and passage to terrorists

from different countries to stop doing so.

The city of New York and its people have witnessed

the devastations of terrorism. They were burned by the

fires of extremists and suffered bloodshed, just as we

are suffering now in Syria. How can countries hit by

the same terrorism that we now suffer in Syria claim

to be fighting terrorism throughout the world while

supporting it in my country? Claims of the existence

of moderate militants and extremist militants have

become a bad and senseless joke. Terrorism means only

terrorism. It cannot be classified as moderate terrorism

and extremist terrorism. What should we call those

who kidnap children in order to sell their body organs

outside the country? How should we describe those

who recruit children and prevent them from going to

school and instead train them to shoot and kill? How

would one describe those who spread perverted fatwas

concerning sexual or incest-related jihad?

We were the ones targeted by poisonous gases in

Khan al-Assal. We asked for an investigative mission

and demanded that its mandate include the ability to

determine who had used chemical weapons. However,

the United States of America and its friends the United

Kingdom and France prevented that and insisted that

the mission be limited to deciding whether or not

chemical weapons had been used. In Syria, we waited

five months for the mission to come. When it arrived,

it was withdrawn before the completion of its task

as certain States had begun to beat the drums of war

against Syria.

My country has accepted the praiseworthy

initiative launched by Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of

the Russian Federation. By acceding to the Chemical

Weapons Convention, Syria has proved its commitment

against the use of such weapons. Syria also calls on the

international community to shoulder its responsibility

against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction

in the Middle East. Syria is known for fulfilling its

obligations and commitments. Therefore, I assure the

Assembly of Syria’s commitment to fully implementing

the provisions of the Convention and to cooperating

with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical

Weapons as a State party to the Convention.

One challenge that we all still face is not knowing

whether those who are supplying terrorists with such

weapons will abide by their legal commitments, since

the terrorists who used poisonous gas in my country

received chemical agents from countries of the region

and the West that are well known to all of us. They

are the ones using poisonous gas on our military and

innocent civilians alike.

Ending aggressive policies towards Syria is the first

appropriate step on the road to a solution in my country.

In the light of the continuing support being given to

terrorism, whether in the form of arms, funding or

training, any political solution will be misleading and a

mere illusion. Syria has repeatedly stated that it is open

to a political solution to its crisis. It is now up to those

who claim to support a political solution for Syria to

halt all practices and policies hostile to Syria and head

to Geneva without preconditions.

On the basis of their national right to self-

determination, the Syrian people have the

exclusive authority to choose their leadership, their

representatives, their future and a political system

that will accommodate every sector of Syrian society,

including those who have been deceived and beguiled

onto the wrong path. We in Syria place no bets on any

party but the Syrian people, all of whom are determined

to reject all foreign interference in their domestic affairs

and to defeat the advocates of sectarianism, extremism

and terrorism. In my country, State policies are firmly

tied to the aspirations of the people. Ballot boxes for

free and fair elections remain the only way for the

Syrian people to determine their own future, free from

the pressures of terrorism and foreign control.

There remain those who do not want a political

solution and always resort to aggression, either directly

or through their agents on the ground. That is what is

happening in Syria. As I mentioned, Syria is committed

to a political solution, but that does not mean allowing

terrorists to attack innocent civilians. It does not mean

watching our mosques and churches be destroyed, as

has happened in Homs and Aleppo and is happening

now in the town of Malula, the only place in the world

whose people still speak the language of Jesus Christ.

What is happening to the churches and mosques is also

affecting the entire historical and cultural heritage of

Syria and humankind.

Do those representing the Member States in

the Assembly know that terrorists from more than

83 countries are engaged in killing our people and our

army in the name of global takfiri jihad? Furthermore,

are some Member States entitled to demand that the

Syrian State ignore its constitutional responsibilities to

protect its citizens and preserve its unity, sovereignty

and independence? The war on terror is not only Syria’s

war. One day, those terrorists will return to their

countries, and then no country in the world will be

safe from that terrorism that recognizes no borders or

geography.

The events in Syria have created humanitarian

needs that continue to grow in several key sectors. The

immoral, inhumane and unilateral sanctions imposed

by the United States and the European Union have

worsened Syrian citizens’ living conditions at a time

when my Government is working with the United

Nations and international organizations within the

framework of a response plan to meet the basic needs

of citizens, particularly those who have been forced

to leave their homes. It should be noted that many of

our people have been forced to flee to neighbouring

countries in great numbers owing to the activities of

armed terrorist groups in border areas. Regrettably, in

some of those countries displaced Syrians have been

put in military training camps and places resembling

detention centres.

From this rostrum, I appeal to Syrian citizens to

return to their towns and villages, where the State will

guarantee their safe return and dignified livelihood,

far from the inhumane conditions in such camps. I

assure the Assembly of our readiness to make every

effort to deliver aid from international organizations

to all Syrian citizens without discrimination, wherever

they are, in compliance with resolution 46/182, while

respecting Syria’s sovereignty and independence.

The developments in my country should not make

us lose sight of Palestine and the Syrian Golan. The

Syrian Arab Republic affirms its natural right to full

sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan up to

the line of 4 June 1967, and emphasizes its rejection

of all measures taken by Israel, the occupying Power,

to change its natural demographic and geographic

features in clear violation of the relevant Security

Council resolutions, particularly resolution 497 (1981).

Syria also reaffirms its support for the legitimate and

inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, particularly

their rights of return and of self-determination, and

to establish an independent State on their land, with

Jerusalem as its capital.

Now that Syria has acceded to the Convention

on the Prohibition of the Development, Production,

Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on

Their Destruction, my country renews its call on the

international community to work to establish a zone

free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle

East. In that regard, we would remind the international

community of Syria’s initiative, taken at the end of its

non-permanent membership of the Security Council in

2003, and call on the Security Council to adopt it.

Syria stresses that establishing a zone free of

weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East will

be unachievable without the accession of Israel,

the only nuclear Power in the region, to all treaties

banning such weapons, and without its agreement to

put its nuclear facilities under the supervision of the

International Atomic Energy Agency. At the same time,

we emphasize the right of all countries to acquire and

develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, in

accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation

of Nuclear Weapons. In that regard, Syria condemns

the fact that the United States and Israel continue to

block the holding of the international conference on

establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction

in the Middle East that was scheduled to take place in

2012.

My country calls on the United States, the countries

of the European Union and others to refrain from taking

immoral unilateral economic measures that contravene

the rules of international law and the principles of free

trade. We therefore call for the lifting of the blockade

that has been imposed by the United States on Cuba for

decades. We also renew our call for lifting and ending

all unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and

the peoples of countries such as Venezuela, Belarus,

Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

We hope that the United Nations will lead the

peoples of the world towards a better future, so that

they may achieve their aspirations for prosperity,

development and food self-sufficiency, free from all

forms of tension, confrontation and war, thus fulfilling

the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United

Nations, which upholds the sovereignty and equality

of all the rights and duties of all Member States. In

that regard, my country welcomes the efforts of the

United States and Iran to bridge the gap of mistrust

between the two countries, and hopes that this will be

reflected constructively and positively in the stability

of international relations.