Israeli occupation of Arab territories root cause of Mideast woes

Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Bashar al-Jaafari has stressed that the main reason behind the conflicts in the Middle East is the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, including Syria’s Golan Heights. Speaking during a UN Security Council session on Monday, Jaafari said, “Syria believes that the cause of the conflicts in the Middle East has been and continues to be the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, including Syria’s occupied Golan.” He warned that any attempt to create new crises in order to save the Israeli entity via the liquidation of the Palestinian cause would further increase tensions and escalate threats to international peace and security. “Some governments still politicize the humanitarian file in Syria,” he said elsewhere in his remarks, adding that those countries, which he did not name, “falsify information, fabricate evidence, and manipulate reports on the use of chemical weapon in Syria.” “The Syrian government has never [used] and will not use any toxic chemical weapons, which it originally doesn’t possess after eliminating them on board US ships in the Mediterranean Sea,” Jaafari stressed. Syria turned over its entire chemical stockpile under a deal negotiated by Russia and the United States back in 2013 and under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Nevertheless, Western countries keep accusing the Syrian government of conducting chemical attacks every now and then without offering any evidence. Elsewhere in his remarks, the Syrian ambassador said the US trained militants in 19 positions it occupied in Syria, including the al-Tanf and al-Rukban camps located in the area near Syria’s border with Jordan and Iraq, providing them with weapons and ammunition. He added that Washington also provided “facilitations” to the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group to continue its attacks on the Syrian army. Referring to recent remarks by Turkey’s ambassador to the UN in which he said “his country fought terrorism in northern Syria and liberated about 4,000 square kilometers,” Jaafari said under international law, no state is allowed to enter another’s territory without the permission of the government of that country. He said Ankara was responsible for the spread of terrorism in Syria, especially in its northern part, as Turkey facilitated the passage of foreign terrorists into Syrian land. Turkey has been hitting what it says are the positions of Kurdish militants in Syria without a permission from Damascus. Formerly, Ankara has offered the terrorist group of Daesh easy passage into and out of Syria.