SYRIA’S neighbours condemned Sunday’s Israeli air strikes on Damascus yesterday. The United Nations confirmed that, far from the Syrian government forces using Sarin and other chemical weapons, it is the imperialist-backed ‘rebels’ who have been found to have done so.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi asserted that this aggression is a response to the achievements of the Syrian Army on the ground and called on all sides in the region and the world to band together and help find a peaceful solution for the crisis in Syria.
Speaker for the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ammar Balani, said that Algeria calls upon the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibilities and to put an end to the outrageous violations by Israel that could escalate the regional situation.
Lebanese Minister of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs, Adnan Mansour, stated: ‘Once again the Israeli entity of terrorism carries out a new aggression on Syria using false pretexts to justify this barbarous aggression.’
He added that Israel wants, through this assault, ‘to pave the way for a large-scale aggression to blow up the region and push it into a destructive confrontation, showing no concern about the disastrous outcomes that could result from this.’
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said: ‘Such behavior isn’t unusual for an enemy whose policy is based on aggression and who exploited the current circumstances in Syria to carry out its attacks, just like it did in Lebanon.’
Sudanese Minister of Culture and Media Information Ahmad Bilal Othman stated: ‘Israeli aggression on sites in Syria constitutes an aggression against the entire Arab nation.’
Othman added that for Israel to attack Syrian sites while Arabs don’t step in is a shameful thing for the Arab nation, and he called on them to reconsider the steps they took against Syria and acknowledge that major mistakes were made.
The Yemeni government condemned the Israeli aggression as a ‘flagrant intervention and clear violation of the UN Charter and international law.’
Iranian Defence Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said Syria is a strong state and it has the right to retaliate strongly against the Israeli aggression.
He stressed that ‘Syria has the right to direct harsh strikes against this entity in the appropriate time,’ and he described the Israeli aggression as ‘a dangerous game’.
The Syrian Cabinet stated on Sunday: ‘The Syrian government stresses that this aggression opens the door wide for all the possibilities, especially that it undoubtedly shows the scale of the organic link between the constituents of the war on Syria, along with their Takfiri terrorist tools, and Zionism.’
Meanwhile, investigators of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria have gathered testimonies from victims and medical staff indicating that Syrian opposition fighters have used the nerve agent Sarin, a commission member, Carla Del Ponte said.
‘The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons, Del Ponte said in a televised interview on Sunday.
She added: ‘Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals.
‘According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of Sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated, she stressed, adding:
‘This was used on the part of the opposition’s fighters, not by the government authorities.’
A rocket with chemical materials was fired by terrorists on the Khan al-Asal area in Aleppo last March, causing the deaths of 25 people and injuring over one hundred.