Statement by Chargé d'Affaires of the Russian Federation Dmitry Polyanskiy at the UN Security Council meeting on Syria
Mm.President,
We thank Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo for her briefing on the developments in the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR). We have also listened with great attention to Head of ‘Syria’s Bright Future’ Hala al-Ghawi, and Head of ‘Families for Freedom’ Amina Khoulani.
The initiative of our Western colleagues to convene this meeting puzzles us and drives us at quite unpleasant thoughts. Instead of credible information we once again heard speculations based on unverified and non-objective data about the situation in Syria. The sources of this data have got caught telling lies several times already.
We consider such steps to escalate the situation and distort the events taking place in Syria and around it as attempts to “put spokes in the wheels” of political settlement in this country.
I will not pretend we are not disappointed by the essence of statements made by our distinguished Western colleagues, in the first place by the U.S. Since the U.S. and its supporters initiated this meeting, we expected them to report on the situation at the de-facto occupied territories, to tell us what laws exist for the people who remain there, how justice is administered. All of this is a big question, and there are more such questions: major armed formations and law enforcement bodies (if you can call them that) – in whose interests are they trained? How many people are detained? How many missing? Unfortunately, nothing of that has been explained.
The information we receive from rights advocates is frankly terrifying. Time and again do we repeat our point: politization of humanitarian and human rights issues is unacceptable. Nonetheless we only hear everyone blame the official Damascus, whereas sheer terrorists who, I remind, established a practice of public executions and torture in Syria, are presented as innocent victims.
We are convinced that instead of this, the international community should in deeds rather than in words help Syria restore after a profound crisis that was and, by the way, remains escalated by external forces, some of which now express deepest concerns about the humanitarian situation in the country. However, assistance cannot be born by scandals, it should come from consistent efforts to strengthen Syria’s public authorities, restore justice and economy, reinstate the ruined connections between people.
Mm. President,
May I inform you that on 1-2 August Nur-Sultan hosted the 13th International Meeting on Syria in “Astana format”. As you know, this format established a Working Group on Detentions and Abductions in the Syrian Conflict, where Russia, Turkey, Iran, experts from the UN and the ICRC are part of. This is a unique mechanism that proved to be effective in building confidence between the sides in Syria.
Last week, on 31 July a fourth operation to exchange forcefully detained persons was carried out under model “14 for 15”. In total, the mechanism that was established by the “Astana format” liberated over 110 people. Previous operations of the same kind were held in November 2018, February and April 2019. Besides, in Syria there is a practice of local detainee exchange that takes place almost on a daily basis.
The group also focuses on missing persons. At the moment we collaborate with UN and ICRC experts to work through the procedure and modalities of compiling a data bank of persons whom the Syrian government and the opposition consider missing; we are also working to outline further action at this track.
At the same time, we ought to realize that these issues are highly sensitive. We hope our partners in the Security Council clearly understand that we speak about humanitarian aspects that do not tolerate publicity and politicizing. We fear that attempts to raise this episode in the Security Council might have the opposite effect and disturb the sophisticated confidence-building process between the opposing sides. We prefer to believe nobody is interested in such negative developments.
We would also like to ask our Western colleagues who mentor the Syrian armed opposition to help the international community find out what happened to thousands of people who were forcefully detained by the armed opposition in eastern Ghouta, Homs, southwestern Syria, and who are considered missing at the moment. Obviously, it is not Damascus to whom these questions should be addressed.
All who are present here today, as well as the interested organizations have had an opportunity to study the latest bulletins by the UN OCHA on the situation in Syria. Their maps mark locations where humanitarian action is carried out both on an international and domestic Syrian scale. The Euphrates region is marked by a large “white spot” on those maps. This is not because everything is okay there. On the contrary, the northeast lies in ruins. According to the data provided by our military, throughout June and July over 300 terrorist attacks took place there. Let alone data provided by Western NGOs, according to which through the first quarter of 2019, coalition’s massive air strikes on Deir ez-Zor killed over 1200 people, civilians in the first place.
The situation remains uneasy in IDP camp “Rukban”. However, thanks to the efforts of the Russian Reconciliation Center and the government of Syria, over 17 thousand people have exited the camp. We intend to continue working in cooperation with the United Nations in order to solve the task of getting refugees back and supplying them with everything they need.
As for the camp “Al-Houl”, the situation there is disastrous indeed. Half of the camp's inhabitants are women and children. If retaining status quo and spread of jihadist ideology is not a goal per se, then time has long become ripe to think of transferring the illegally occupied territories back under control of the Syrian authorities in order to solve the problem with IDPs. Frankly speaking, so far we have been having an impression that “Al-Houl” where 11 out of 73 thousand residents are foreign citizens, as well as prisons in the northeast that are out of control of Damascus, build one big concentration camp.
Mm. President,
No less worrying is the situation in the zone “Al-Tanf”. With reference to all the areas I have just named, let me remind that under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying State is responsible for the population residing in the occupied areas.
In conclusion let me make another point and emphasize that even though we listen to our colleagues from the U.S. speak on humanitarian and human rights aspects of the situation in Syria, this by no means indicates that the ongoing American military presence in this country possesses any legitimacy in the eyes of Syrians and the global community. Controversial statements made by the U.S. leadership imply that ISIL has been defeated in Syria and Iraq. However, it was countering ISIL that U.S. military presence there aspired to achieve. The fact that this presence remains in place in current circumstances makes us think the U.S may have other tasks that are at odds with the principles of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of the SAR.
On its part, Russia will continue to provide the required assistance to Syrians in terms of overcoming difficulties, achieving agreements regarding political settlement, at the humanitarian track, in post-conflict recovery of the country. We will be doing so in our national capacity, and within multilateral formats when working with all the interested stakeholders. We call upon all the reasonable forces to join these efforts.
Thank you.
In response to the representative of Great Britain:
To be frank, I was not going to take the floor, but after two statements by my British colleague, I cannot escape the thought that you are trying to show that the Council be united on the issues you touch upon. Your communication with the distinguished representative of the SAR looks more like that of a prosecutor and a defendant. We believe this is unacceptable.
In our statement we have put quite a lot of questions that you and your Western colleagues still are to answer. If turn this meeting into a court session, as you are trying to, then the ones to be in the dock should be those who used external interference to escalate the situation in Syria to a state that we are having now. Please keep this in mind.
Thank you.
