Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council meeting on Syria

We thank Mr. De Mistura and Mr. Ging for their briefings.

The United States presidency has formulated the topic of today’s meeting in a curious way. It has been convened at the initiative of some Council members of the Security Council to consider the situation in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the situation in Idlib. It would appear that Idlib is some kind of separate State entity.

We would like to remind the Council that it is an integral part of the Syrian Arab Republic, whose sovereignty and territorial integrity we hope no one questions. In that connection, Mr. De Mistura’s statement to the effect that the Syrian authorities have every right to fight for the restoration of control throughout their territory is very apposite.

Furthermore, it is an obligation of the Syrian Government towards its people. We should remember that in eastern Aleppo, Ghouta, the southern suburbs of Damascus, Qalamoun, Dara’a, Quneitra and other difficult areas, it was not peaceful civilians who were evacuated, but rather fullon fighters who had refused to lay down their weapons and return to a normal life as law-abiding citizens.

Nobody disputes the fact that in the Idlib de-escalation zone there is a large number of Jabhat Al-Nusra terrorists who pose a threat to international peace and security. It is that large, militarily capable terrorist group’s operations that is determining the current situation in that part of Syria, and its members are striving to keep the area under their control, and the fact that the situation is at a standstill is unacceptable. The de-escalation agreements stipulate that they are temporary, and the relevant Security Council resolutions clearly state that none of the cessation-ofhostilities regimes apply to terrorist organizations.

The fight against them must go on, and in that regard we have consistently called on the international community to act decisively, according to the same rules and on a basis of cooperation. It is self-evident that it is not acceptable to preserve terrorist potential for political aims, whatever they may be. It is not acceptable to make all kinds of efforts to create obstacles to the return of Syrian refugees to a country that has largely been rid of terrorists

. It is not acceptable to make every effort to obstruct the process of rebuilding Syria and subject it to political conditions. That only attests to the fact that, in reality, our Western partners have absolutely no interest in the fate and plight of ordinary civilians. The terrorists in Idlib are taking aggressive action. They have taken millions of civilians hostage and are conducting raids on surrounding areas and shelling nearby towns and villages. The cessation-ofhostilities regime is being violated dozens of times every day. Russian troops have destroyed 55 unmanned aerial vehicles armed with explosives flown out of the de-escalation zone.

On 4 September, Russian aircraft carried out strikes on confirmed Al-Nusra targets, far from residential areas, in Idlib province. They were caches where drones and their munitions were stored and kept. A storage site for man-portable air defence systems was also destroyed with high-precision weapons. Where did the terrorists get hold of such large quantities of foreign military equipment? Was it directly from the manufacturers? Or was it from the so-called moderate opposition, which has had no problems getting external support? That is an issue that the relevant United Nations bodies should investigate without delay. Al-Nusra is focusing its efforts on consolidating radically minded illegal armed groups around it.

The terrorist leaders have been making fierce efforts to block the desire of commanders in the field and leaders of local governing bodies to get out of these groups, going as far as eliminating them physically. A typical example of that approach has been the destruction of groups from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant that refused to join Jabhat Al-Nusra and whose remnants, as many as 500 people, had lost control over regions they had previously held and gone underground. Here are a few statistics. In the Idlib de-escalation zone there are altogether 40 to 45 armed groups whose members total about 50,000. The greatest resistance comes from Jabhat Al-Nusra, with 16,000 members, and other unreconciled groups, totalling 11,300, whose core consists of foreign fighters and Syrians who have the blood of supporters of Damascus on their hands. They include Hizb Al-Islami Al-Turkistani, with some 700 members; Jaysh Al-Izza, with as many as 1,000 members; the radical ranks of Ahrar Al-Sham, with as many as 800 members; Faylak Al-Rahman, with about 5,500 members; Haras Al-Din, about 1,500 members; Nusrat Al-Islam, about 1,900 members; and Jabhat Al-Wataniya lil-Tahrir, with as many as 800 members. A few armed groups — Jabhat Al-Wataniya lilTahrir and the radical ranks of Ahrar Al-Sham — are completely dependent on Al-Nusra. Furthermore, many adherents of those groups are unreconciled because they are forced to be, remaining loyal to the extremists out of fear for their lives and the safety of their families.

However, there are still some groups, whose numbers total around 13,300, that are operating in the zone and are willing to reconcile. They include about 2,300 from the Free Syrian Army, 4,000 from Nusrat Al-Islam, 5,000 from Ahrar Al-Sham, 2,000 from Nour Al-Din Al-Zenki, and others. Besides that, most villages are held by local self-defence units of between 30 and 50 people, about 10,000 altogether, who are also disposed to make peace. As many as 80 per cent of the inhabitants of Idlib are sick of the extremists’ tyranny and support reverting to the embrace of the State as soon as possible, a mood shared by some fighters who realize the futility of armed resistance.

That has been encouraged by the success of reconciliation in other de-escalation zones, security guarantees provided by Russia and work that is being done to ensure refugees’ return. I want to point out that schools and medical facilities financed by the Government are still functioning in Idlib and funds from the budget are being earmarked for supporting vital infrastructure and paying civil servants’ salaries. The Russian Federation is making major efforts to resolve the Idlib situation through negotiations. To that end, intense consultations are being held with the Astana process partners and with those on the ground who are actually controlling the situation.

A top-level meeting of the guarantor countries is being held in Tehran today. One effective solution would be to separate the armed opposition groups that want to participate in the political process from the terrorists, who remain a legitimate target for elimination. Many speakers today have called on the Astana process guarantors.

We have also frequently turned to our Western partners, but they have not heeded our calls. Unfortunately, the Western capitals led by Washington that are trying to prevent the fall of their extremism-inclined clients’ regime have not used their influence or helped to encourage a separation. Instead, they are hatching another round of aggressive plans around high-profile chemical provocations. We are under the distinct impression that in fomenting hysteria over Idlib, our Western partners are trying to prevent the fall of the last major terrorist stronghold in Syria in any way they can, and this is far more about geopolitics than about the humanitarian concern for the protection of civilians that they claim.

The possibility of joining in the initiatives for reconciliation and thereby strengthening the positive trends in Syria is still there. Staffan de Mistura, who is in active contact with the Syrian opposition within the framework of his political mandate, could also send it the same message. We affirm our full commitment to a Syrian-led political process on the basis of resolution 2254 (2015).

I will not list everything we have undertaken to advance the political process. We call on other partners to make a real contribution to it. The propaganda campaign currently being fomented by Damascus’s opponents around Idlib follows the scripts for the scenarios that were predicted when Aleppo and eastern Ghouta were being liberated, but neither of those apocalyptic prognoses materialized, unlike in Raqqa, which has been bombed into the ground by the so-called coalition. The subject of the military occupation by Western countries of areas of Syria, including its humanitarian aspects, clearly warrants special discussion in the Security Council.