UN Envoy: Unauthorized Foreign Presence in Syria Amounts to Occupation

Addressing a teleconference meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday, Bashar al-Ja’afari said Syria would not abandon its right to safeguard its land and resources.

The Arab country, he added, is determined to keep up the fight against both foreign-backed terrorists and the occupiers, whether they are Americans, Turks or Israelis.

He slammed Turkey for sponsoring the terrorist groups that are active in different regions of northern Syria, describing Ankara’s move as a flagrant violation of its obligations under the agreements in Sochi, Moscow, Kazakhstan and under international law in general.

On the US military intervention in his country, Ja’afari said the American troops had begun to establish a new military base in the countryside of the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor with the aim of tightening their grip on Syrian oil wells and looting the nation’s resources.

The senior Syrian diplomat further referred to the Israeli regime’s frequent acts of aggression against the country using the airspace over the Tel Aviv-occupied side of the Golan Heights or Syria’s neighbors.

Such hostile practices — which are in flagrant violation of international law — are part of an agenda to prop up the terrorist groups wreaking havoc on Syria and prolong the crisis gripping the Arab country since 2011.

Russia, US must push for Syria peace: UN envoy

Separately, the UN’s Syria envoy Geir Pedersen on Monday urged the US and Russia to make the most of “some calm” in the conflict-stricken country and push for peace amid the threats posed by remnants of the ISIS Takfiri terror group in the country as well as a coronavirus outbreak there.

The Syrian mediator told the 15-member Security Council that since the outbreak of conflict in the Arab country, too many “fleeting opportunities to turn dynamics towards a political path were lost,” warning that those “missed moments were followed by renewed violence and a hardening of positions.”

“With some calm, with the common threats of COVID and ISIS, and with the Syrian people continuing to suffer, I want to stress that renewed and meaningful international cooperation, building trust and confidence between international stakeholders and with Syrians ... is essential,” Pedersen said.

“I believe that Russian-American dialogue has a key role to play here, and I encourage them to pursue it,” he said.