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STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA DE MISTURA
TRT: 2:49
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 06 OCTOBER 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
FILE- GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior of Palais des Nations
06 OCTOBER 2016, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, Press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“Can you please look at my eyes, and those of the Aleppo people, of the 275,000 civilians that are there where you are and confidently tell those 275,000 people that you are going to stay there and that you remain there and keep hostage of your refusal to leave the city because 1,000 of you are deciding on the destiny of 275,000 civilians? I would like you to reply to this question, not to me, but to those 275,000 people. And if you did decide to leave in dignity, and with your weapons to Idlib or anywhere you wanted to go, I personally am ready physically to accompany you.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“Are you really ready to continue this type of level of fighting, using that type of weapons and de facto destroy the whole city, eastern city of Aleppo, ancient city of Aleppo with its own 275,000 people, for the sake of eliminating 1,000 Al-Nusra fighters?”
6. Med shot, Deputy Special Envoy for Syria and colleagues
7. SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Staffan de Mistura, Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“There is only one thing that we are not ready to do: be passive, resign ourselves to another Srebrenica, another Rwanda, which we are capable sadly today to recognize written on that wall in front of us unless something takes place.”
8. Close up, journalist
9. Jan Egeland, Special Advisor to the Special Envoy for Syria, United Nations:
“At this point of great crisis we need to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves and there is no doubt that we are failing an increasing number of civilians in Syria at this point. East Aleppo was just added to our list of besieged areas which means 275,000 new people on this black list seen with the eyes of anyone who believes in international law.”
The United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria expressed his readiness to “physically” accompany Al Nusra fighters out of Eastern Aleppo if they decide to leave with “dignity.”
Speaking to reporters in Geneva today (6 Oct) Staffan de Mistura asked Al Nusra fighters in Eastern Aleppo to look him and the 275,000 civilians besieged in the city in the eyes and “confidently tell those 275,000 people that you are going to stay there and that you remain there and keep hostage of your refusal to leave the city because 1,000 of you are deciding on the destiny of 275,000 civilians.” He said if the fighters decided to in “dignity” and with their weapons he was “personally” ready to “physically” accompany them.
Turning to the Russian and Syrian authorities, De Mistura asked, “Are you really ready to continue this type of level of fighting, using that type of weapons and de facto destroy the whole city, eastern city of Aleppo, ancient city of Aleppo with its own 275,000 people, for the sake of eliminating 1,000 Al-Nusra fighters?” He called on Russia and Syrian to announce an “immediate and total” halt to aerial bombing in Eastern Aleppo and to ensure that the local administration, if “Al Nusra leaves” the city.
Some 900 militants of the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front, are currently estimated to be operating in Aleppo. De Mistura told reporters that the besieged town could be completely destroyed and thousands of civilians could die within two months if military activity continues.The Special Envoy said the one thing that the UN was not willing to do was to “be passive, and resign ourselves to another Srebrenica, another Rwanda. “
De Mistura called the decision of the United States to suspend the cooperation with the Russian Federation on the cessation of hostilities in Syria “a serious setback”. However, the Special Envoy made clear that “the fact that Russia and America [made] their own decision to suspend the current bilateral negotiations should not and will not affect the existence of ISSG (International Syria Support Group)".
De Mistura’s Advisor Jan Egeland said a "great crisis" was unfolding before the eyes of the world. He said, "We need to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves, and there is no doubt that we are failing an increasing number of civilians in Syria at this point.”
