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8296th Security Council Meeting: Situation in Middle East
The Special Envoy for Syria warned the Security Council today that a full-scale battle in the country’s previously calm south-west could engulf an area and population the size of eastern Ghouta and Aleppo combined, adding that events seemed to be moving in that direction.
Briefing delegates from Geneva, Staffan de Mistura said that over the last week, nearly 50,000 people in the south-west had been displaced by a full ground offensive, aerial bombardments and exchanges of gunfire from both sides. The implications raised significant risks for regional security and compromised progress being made on the political front, which was focused on the formation of a constitutional committee.
He said that this month, he had consulted with France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the United States on de-escalation arrangements, as those countries had a stake in the process and could be important players in any reconstruction. He had also sought to advance the Final Statement agreed at the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue, held in Sochi, Russian Federation. He had received a list of 50 nominees for the constitutional committee from Syria and was awaiting a similar one from the opposition.
“We are moving cautiously in the right direction,” he said, urging the Council to help find a solution in the south-west that would spare suffering and reduce displacement. He urged all parties to use existing channels for the protection of civilians and for providing an exit to the conflict.
John Ging, Director of the Coordination and Response Division of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the number of displaced people could nearly double if the fighting continued. Dozens of civilians had been reported killed, while civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, had come under attack. Despite the hostilities, however, the United Nations and its partners were providing core relief to more than 400,000 people in southern Syria from across the border in Jordan, he said. While the geographic space for operations had shrunk as south-eastern areas transitioned to Government control, the number of people supported by the United Nations had grown. “For many people in need in the south of Syria and in the north-west, cross-border operations remain a lifeline,” he added.
In the ensuing dialogue, delegates decried the intensified fighting within the south-western de-escalation zone negotiated by the United States, Jordan, and the Russian Federation in 2017. Expressing deep concern over Syria’s new offensive, directly supported by the Russian Federation, the representative of the United States said claims that more than half of the zone was controlled by terrorists were “just not true” and urged Moscow to uphold the ceasefire it had helped to create.
The Russian Federation’s representative, on the other hand, said life was being restored with “robust” assistance from his country, especially in Damascus and near Homs. Homes were being rebuilt in eastern Ghouta, but in the south-west, the terrorist group Al-Nusrah had attacked Syrian military personnel, while jihadists had shelled Dara’a and other areas that had embraced de-escalation. No cessation-of-hostilities regime had ever stipulated a pause in fighting terrorists, he emphasized.
Syria’s delegate said the Special Envoy had failed to consider combating terrorism a priority, despite the fact that Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da’esh), under the protection of the United States, and Al-Nusrah, under the protection of the United States, Israel and others, were present in the country. Terrorists had carried out attacks in Dara’a and other places in what was being called south-west Syria and it was the duty of Syria’s army to respond, he added.
Recalling that the objective of resolution 2139 (2014) should have been to help Syria overcome the suffering caused by the terrorist war imposed upon it, he said the facts showed that his country’s Government was cooperating with the United Nations to deliver aid. Last month, it had approved all requests by the World Food Programme and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Also speaking today were representatives of the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, China, Peru, Equatorial Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Poland, Bolivia, Kuwait and Ethiopia.
The meeting began at 10:20 a.m. and ended at 12:48 p.m.
