DEPUTY Foreign and Expatriates Minister Dr Faysal Miqdad said on Friday that the Syrian people, who are confronting terrorism with epic steadfastness, have the exclusive right to choose their leadership and determine their future.
Miqdad was addressing ambassadors and accredited heads of diplomatic missions in Damascus whom he met on 4 October to brief them on the dangers of the Turkish government’s policies.
He said the Syrian people won’t allow any interference in their domestic affairs by the Turkish government or any other, stressing that they are more determined than ever to foil the schemes targeting Syria’s unity and territorial integrity.
He indicated that the Turkish policies are a flagrant violation of the UN Charter that calls for respecting the sovereignty of states and non-interference in their domestic affairs.
The Turkish government’s decision illustrates the Turkish policy in offering all kinds of political, military and logistical support to terrorist organisations, namely ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, in a flagrant breach of UNSC resolutions 2170 and 2178.
The Turkish government, which constituted the primary support base for terrorism that fuelled terrorist activity in Syria, can never claim to be a partner in fighting terrorism, Miqdad pointed out.
‘The reckless policies of the Turkish leadership and its stated aggression against Syria will only lead to a continuation of bloodshed and prolong the crisis in Syria,’ Miqdad said.
He added that Turkey won’t be safe from the ‘catastrophic fallout’ of its policies, which requires that the international community and the UNSC take a decisive and responsible position to compel the Turkish government to abide by its resolutions.
He asked the ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions to brief their governments on the latest Turkish escalation and its perils to regional and international peace and security.
The diplomats, for their part, stressed that fighting terrorism should be in line with international law and respecting national sovereignty of states, stressing the necessity of taking a firm line against the Turkish government’s policies.
The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said in Damascus that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced on Thursday that a regime change in Syria is a priority in his policies, submitting a memorandum at the Turkish Parliament to get an authorisation for military action in Syria.
‘By so doing, Erdogan has turned Turkey into a springboard of aggression against Syria under the false claim of fighting terrorism and protecting Turkey’s national security,’ said the Ministry in two identical letters sent to the UN Secretary-General and head of the UN Security Council.
The declared course of action of the Turkish government constitutes a flagrant violation of the UN Charter which calls for respecting the national sovereignty of states and non-interference in their domestic affairs, said the ministry.
The ministry stressed that this also constitutes an aggression against a state which is a founding member of the United Nations, urging the international community to ‘put an end to the Turkish leadership’s adventurism that poses a threat to regional and international peace and security’.
Addressing the policies of the Turkish government since the outbreak of the crisis, the Ministry indicated that it has stopped at nothing that might add fuel to the fire and deliver a blow to the stability and coexistence that has been a distinguishing feature of the Syrian society.
‘The Turkish government should have, as good neighbourliness dictates, extended a helping hand to Syria amid the crisis, but it opted instead, as a bearer of the same ideology of religious extremism as the terror groups, to turn Turkey into a support base for these organisations,’ said the Ministry.
The Ministry said that the Turkish government is responsible for ‘every single drop of blood that has been shed in Syria’ due to its political, military, and logistical support to terrorist organisations and its role as a conduit for terrorists who came via Turkey to Syria from over 83 countries.
‘Not only did the Turkish government kill Syrians and ravage their cities and villages, but also it sought to strike the development process in Syria and Syrians’ achievements,’ said the letters, enumerating Turkey’s practices of dismantling and stealing factories in complicity with the terrorist organisations, with the purchasing of oil that ISIS and other terrorist organisations had stolen being one of the clearest examples of collusion between the Turkish leadership and these groups.
The Turkish government, the Ministry added, can never lay a claim to fighting terrorism as it is to be blamed for an increase in terrorist activity, given its established relations with the terrorists, namely ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, in violation of the UNSC Resolutions 2170 and 2187.
Referring to the release of the Turkish consulate members who have been taken hostage in Mosul earlier by ISIS, the Ministry referred to the incident as a ‘farce’ that proves the deep collusion between the Turkish government and ISIS gangs.
The Ministry stressed that the Syrian people, who went to the polls to choose their leadership and determine their future, won’t allow any form of interference in their internal affairs by the Turkish government or any other.
• A 12-year-old boy was killed and another civilian was injured in a terrorist mortar attack on Harasta suburb in the Damascus Countryside on Friday.
An official at the Police Command told SANA that terrorists fired four mortar shells which landed near Al-Tahani Mosque in Block B1 and the suburb’s roundabout, claiming the life of a 12 year-old boy, injuring another, and causing material damage.
Another mortar shell fired by terrorists fell in Al-Adawi neighbourhood in Damascus City, hitting a rooftop near the Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ministry and causing a fire to erupt in a heating fuel tank. The attack caused only material damage.
An official in Lattakia province said that three civilians were killed and eight others were wounded after a rocket fired by terrorists from Lattakia northern countryside hit al-Tahwra Highway in the city.
Another rocket fell near the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, causing no damage.
• Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public appearance on Saturday (4 October), attending prayers on the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday at a mosque in Damascus, state media said.
State media and Assad’s official Twitter feed posted photos of the Syrian president praying alongside the country’s top cleric and members of the government.`
‘President Bashar al-Asad leads Eid al-Adha prayers at the Nuaman bin Bashir mosque in Damascus,’ state news agency SANA said.
Adnan Afyouni, Damascus’s top cleric, used his sermon to criticise the international community for its double standards when it comes to the Syrian crisis which began on 2011.
‘Eid is associated with happiness in the life of the Muslim nation,’ he said. ‘But Eid has not entered our homes because the West and its Arab collaborators decided to make our country a battlefield. . . and implement interests and agendas,’ he said.
‘We pledge to God almighty to protect our country from a great conspiracy that targets its role and presence and resilience,’ he said. ‘We pledge to keep the country from being turned into a war zone, torn apart and divided,’ he said, referring to ‘plans drawn up at the White House and being carried out today in north and east Syria’.
