UN envoy Ja'afari: West subverts political process in Syria

Syria’s permanent representative to the United Nations says some permanent members of the Security Council are desperately attempting to undermine the political process in Syria.

Speaking at a United Nations session on the situation in Syria via a video link on Wednesday, Bashar al-Ja’afari said Western pressures have hindered the 15-member council from playing its role in preserving the rules of the UN Charter.

“Since the adoption of the political process by Security Council as a basis for solution to the crisis in Syria, some permanent member countries in this council have sought to hinder this approach to the degree that a number of these countries unfortunately turned to use it practically to support the terrorist war on Syria,” he said.

Al-Jaafari said a national team is ready to participate in the next round of a committee meetings that will be held in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The Syrian envoy also demanded that this process should remain Syrian-led without any external pressure or intervention. He went on to say that the principles that have been agreed upon and the references that have been reached must be respected.

Elsewhere in his remarks, al-Jaafari voiced concern over the council's silence toward the US occupation of Syrian territories and Washington's support for terrorist groups operating across the Arab country.

“The US behavior, which contradicts the international law and the UN Charter and the Security Council resolutions, didn’t come suddenly as the American administration has persisted through its illegal coalition to launch repeated attacks over the Syrian Arab Army forces to prevent them from liberating the regions that were occupied by terrorist organization such as Daesh in the northeast of Syria,” he said.

The ambassador also said the US had recently carried out an airstrike in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, killing a soldier and injuring two others.

The airstrike reportedly took place after a government checkpoint refused passage to a US patrol that tried to break into a zone controlled by the Syrian Army. Two helicopters are said to have conducted the attack.

The US has been conducting airstrikes and operations against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus. The US military and its allies in the occupation of Syria have repeatedly been charged with targeting and killing civilians.

The Syrian envoy also strongly condemned an agreement recently signed between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militant group and an American oil company aimed at stealing the country's oil.

Syria and its allies in the war on terrorism have said US attempts to control Syria’s oilfields are “illegal” and amount to “robbery.”

SS