About the liberation of Aleppo

The malicious and deceitful campaign being led by certain Western regimes at the United Nations, and in particular certain Security Council members, regarding the current situation in Aleppo comes as no surprise to the people and Government of the Syrian Arab Republic. The regimes of France, the United Kingdom and the United States, and their regional proxies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, are financing, arming and training terrorists, and then sending them across the border into Syrian territory to murder Syrians, break Syria apart and destroy its infrastructure, and eliminate anyone who fails to subscribe to their agenda. Those regimes are falling over themselves to perform one last service for those terrorists prior to their imminent collapse in the face of the blows they are being dealt by our people in Aleppo and by the people, army, allies and friends of Syria, who are sparing no effort in standing up to terrorism. As if we needed any further evidence to prove our point, witness the unprecedented hysteria of the leaders of certain Western States and their representatives in international organizations, and the feverish media campaign to discredit the leadership, army and allies of Syria in a desperate effort to thwart the imminent victory in Aleppo, turn the facts on their head, and pressure Syria to retreat from its declared policy of combating the terrorism of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Nusrah Front and affiliated organizations, as well as their sponsors and backers, not only in Aleppo but in all parts of the Syrian Arab Republic. It is regrettable that, in the twenty-first century, such a shameful approach should be adopted not only by Western States that have had no compunction about committing the most repulsive genocidal crimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, but also by high-level United Nations officials and agencies. The pressure has culminated in the exploitation by those States of international pulpits to further their own aims to the detriment of the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, international law, and the steadfast struggle of Syria and its allies against terrorism.

From the start of this war, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has asserted its constitutional duty to defend its people and institutions against the threats facing them. The Government has also declared that it cannot abdicate its counter-terrorism responsibilities or allow anyone to marginalize it. Syria has done what it had pledged to do. In the course of prosecuting its war against terrorism and protecting its citizens, Syria has adhered to international standards and cooperated with sincere and credible international institutions, both governmental and non governmental; delivered assistance to its citizens in all parts of the country; and taken extreme care to ensure that its army’s operations do not affect innocent civilians or the infrastructure of the Syrian people. In Aleppo, in particular, it has been receptive to initiatives for the evacuation of armed fighters from the city and fulfilled its pledges, even as Western States, to their resounding shame, have reneged on their commitments and policies at all levels.

As everyone at the United Nations is aware from our letters to the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General, Syria has opened six crossing points for civilians and two crossing points in order to enable armed fighters to leave Aleppo before the Syrian Arab Army and its allies go about the job of liberating Syrian citizens from the carnage that has been inflicted by armed terrorist groups in eastern Aleppo for the past five years. The Syrian Government can no longer ignore the pleas of the Syrian people in both the east and the west of Aleppo for it to eliminate the armed terrorist groups that, instead of treating the people of eastern Aleppo as citizens, have enslaved them, disrupted their lives, denied them access to food, medicine, electricity and water, and made it impossible for their children to attend school. Those armed terrorist groups have shown no compunction about killing over 11,000 women and children from western Aleppo with their bombs of hate and “hell cannons”, of which all the States of the world are aware. They have also launched criminal attacks against personnel of the United Nations and other organizations stationed in western Aleppo. Contrary to the misinformation disseminated by parties hostile to Syria, it was the armed terrorist groups that destroyed schools, or used them, along with the hospitals of eastern Aleppo, as bases from which to commit murder and to employ all manner of repression, threats and torture to terrorize and intimidate the people from expressing their loyalty to their homeland and their rejection of terrorism and extremism.

It is now well known that the Aleppo Eye Specialist Hospital, which was occupied by the armed terrorist groups at the onset of the troubles in Aleppo, has become a base for armed groups supported by Western States that consider them to be the “moderate opposition”. That hospital was one of the most advanced ophthalmic hospitals in the Middle East, but those groups sold its equipment on the Turkish market with full knowledge of the Turkish authorities. The latest information out of Aleppo has revealed that the humanitarian assistance that certain organizations claimed they were providing to civilians was actually going to armed fighters who used it for their own terrorist purposes and prevented it from reaching civilians, in order to starve them into submission. After the liberation of neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo, the media found arms depots full of advanced missiles and other deadly weapons that are evidence of how the States that support terrorism — whose names we will disclose at a later date — were subsidizing terrorism and the murder of Syrians. The war profiteers from Western States and their allies in certain Eastern European countries that are members of the European Union are merchants of war, death and destruction who must be held accountable for supplying those weapons to terrorist organizations to murder Syrians, including children, women and the elderly.

The allegations made in the reports and statements of certain United Nations officials, including certain officials of the Human Rights Council, are intended not to protect human rights, but to protect the terrorists, and to justify the policies of Western States, which have turned certain United Nations officials and agencies into instruments to mislead Member States and cover up their plot to bend Syria and the entire Middle East to their nefarious policies and objectives. Those Western States have taken to calling interminable General Assembly and Security Council meetings, in yet another sign that they want to hold the United Nations hostage to their anaemic policies and use it as a platform for misleading some peoples and pressuring other States by turning the facts on their head and weeping crocodile tears, in order to isolate Syria and sap its determination in the face of terrorism, extremism, and foreign plots. Syria underscores that any attempt to put an entire people under siege, including the economic siege of Syria, represents the ultimate in violation of human rights and the right to a life of dignity.

Our Syrian people in eastern Aleppo have expressed nothing but love, friendship and gratitude to the Syrian Arab Army for having liberated them from the terrorists. They have come out in genuine, spontaneous and massive demonstrations to give voice to their pride in returning to the warm embrace of their homeland, and their gratitude to the Syrian Arab Army and its allies for freeing them from the grip of terrorism, oppression and extremism. The fact that some of those who crow the loudest about freedom and democracy have chosen to ignore this only goes to show that they have no respect for a people’s democratic expression of its desire to be free of foreign intervention, its loyalty to its homeland and its love for its army, which has sacrificed its precious blood to eradicate terrorism and fight those who support it.

Syria hopes that the new year of 2017 will provide the Western States that support terrorism an opportunity to turn away from their previous practices and policies and act in good faith to put an end to the scourge of terrorism. Syria, which has been a crossroads of civilizations and religions, deserves to have the whole world stand with its people, its Government and its allies in the war against terrorism.

I should be grateful if the present letter could be issued as a document of the Security Council.