Al-Jaafari: presence of foreign forces on Syrian territories illegitimate

New York, SANA-Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari affirmed on Monday that the presence of foreign forces on Syrian territories is illegitimate and it violates UN principles, conventions and they should immediately leave. Al-Jaafari made his remarks during a General Assembly session on the report of the UN Secretary General about the work of the organization. “Authors of the report did not mention the aggression and foreign presence on the territories of some UN member states without their approval and under unconcealed and fake pretexts like possession of weapons of mass destruction or protecting their civilians from non-existent fictitious danger or spreading fake democracy,” al-Jaafari added. “It would have been helpful if those who prepared the report had considered that foreign presence as illegitimate and a blatant breach of the international law and the UN’s Charter as well as an aggression against states’ sovereignty and a threat to the international peace and security,” said al-Jaafari, noting that the reference here is to the illegal US, British and French military presence on the Syrian territories. The Syrian diplomat indicated that Syria welcomes UN Secretary General’s report on counterterrorism so as to ensure the attainment of the desired objective and widen efforts exerted to counter the main causes for terrorist recruitment and the spread of terrorism phenomenon, adding “We would have hoped that the report’s authors would have bothered themselves and referred to Syria, and not only to Iraq, when they had written about Daesh (ISIS) terrorist organization. He pointed out that some parties have made Syria a destination for terrorists without borders like other suspected organizations such as “Doctors without Borders” and “Killers without Borders”, indicating that what important for them is to maintain terrorism without borders. Al-Jaafari said that Syria’s experience with its allies in fighting terrorism deserves to be referred to at the Secretary General’s report, but those who prepared the report have overlooked this point. He added that Syria strongly rejects the article No. 122 on the so-called international, impartial and independent mechanism which has been established according to a non-consensual and illegal decision, pointing out that several letters have been submitted to the UN and President of the General Assembly stressing Syria’s refusal to recognize this mechanism or accept its mandate taking into account that it was established relying on politicized and biased resolution. “Are there any one today who thinks after 101 states, which are members of the UN organization, have been exporting terrorism to Syria for eight years that the work of these states is independent, impartial and objective?”, wondered al-Jaafari. He renewed Syria’s condemnation of using weapons of mass destruction, expressing astonishment at the Secretary General’s report that overlooked the arsenal of the Israeli entity, the only side which possesses nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the Middle East, rejects to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to place all its nuclear facilities under full-scope safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Al-Jaafari also wondered why the Secretary General’s report did not refer to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Syrian Golan and other Arab territories or the unilateral coercive procedures imposed on several states, including Syria, by the US, the European Union and others. He stressed Syria’s readiness to make every effort to cooperate with the UN Secretary General within the framework of respecting the UN’s Charter, the international legitimacy and the international law.