GENEVA, September 16 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Foreign Ministry is “deeply disappointed” by the fact that experts from the U.N. commission investigating possible human rights violations in Syria have turned down the invitation to visit that country. “We would like to express our deep disappointment at the fact that the experts did not use two invitations to visit the country, sent to commission member Carla del Ponte by both Syria’s Great Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun and the Syrian Government,” Deputy Russian Permanent Representative to the U.N. agencies and other international organisations in Geneva Andrei Nikiforov said on Monday, September 16.
The diplomat took part in a so-called interactive dialogue with the members of the U.N. commission, created in 2011, which presented its latest report to the Human Rights Council. Carla del Ponte said she had turned down an invitation, which was given to her last week, to visit Syria in private capacity as she could travel to the country only as a member of the U.N. commission.
The commission’s report accused the Syrian government of crimes against humanity and rebels of war crimes. Nikiforov noted that the report was “largely biased.” “It gives one the impression that the governmental troops, which are fighting a well-armed and trained army of rebels and foreign mercenaries, are violating international humanitarian law and human rights law. And all this against the background of the appalling crimes against civilians committed by terrorists related to Al-Qaeda,” the diplomat said.
- “We urge the commission to pay this special attention so that its reports work for the benefit of peace, not confrontation,” Nikiforov said.
16/9/13
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Related:
UN Chief Receives Report on Alleged Chemical Attack in Syria.
UN-Ermittler: Bei Damaskus wurden Boden-Boden-Raketen mit Nervengift eingesetzt...
Carla del Pontes Syrien-Besuch verschoben. -Im vergangenen Mai hatte Del Ponte nicht ausgeschlossen, dass chemische Waffen in Syrien von Oppositionellen eingesetzt wurden.
Carla del Ponte: Regimegegner hinter Chemiewaffen Attacke zu vermuten - UN Kommission distanziert sich (VIDEO - EN YT 27/8/13)
Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack Carried Out by Rebels, Says UN -Carla del Ponte (VIDEO YT May 2013)
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Most Syrians killed in unlawful conventional attacks, UN human rights panel says...
ReplyDelete16 September 2013 – The vast majority of Syrians are killed in unlawful attacks using conventional weapons such as guns and mortars, with children making up a large proportion of the casualties, the United Nations-appointed human rights probe today reported, calling for a halt to weapons being supplied to Government and the rebels.
“Arms transfers should not occur where there is a real risk that they will be used in the commission of crimes against humanity, violations of international humanitarian law, or war crimes. In Syria, this is a tragic reality,” Paulo Pinheiro, the chairman of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said as he introduced the report to the Human Rights Council.
He noted that failure to bring about a settlement to the conflict has led it to deepen in its intransigence and also to widen “expanding to new actors and to unimaginable crimes”.
As the fighting rages on, civilians continue to bear the brunt. In that context he noted civilians continue to face daily indiscriminate shelling and bombardment by Government forces, and that extremist anti-Government farmed groups have targeted civilians in attacks across the northern governorates.
The UN report on possible use of chemical weapons has not yet been made public, Mr. Pinheiro noted, but the latest diplomatic efforts in Geneva involving Russia and the United States aimed at removing the arsenal “may – may – form the bedrock of a broader negotiation leading to a political settlement of the conflict.”
Mr. Pinheiro, whose leads the Commission comprising of Karen AbuZayd, Carla del Ponte and Vitit Muntarbhorn, said the vast majority of the conflict’s casualties result from unlawful attacks using conventional weapons such as guns and mortars.
“The Government has continued its relentless campaign of air bombardment and artillery shelling across the country,” he said.
Since 15 July, the Commission documented unlawful attacks in 12 of the 14 governorates, with particularly intense shelling in the cities and surrounding areas of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.
Cluster munitions continue to be dropped on civilian areas, notably in Idlib governorate, Mr. Pinheiro said highlighting some of the findings since the latest report produced by the Commission.
Those include an attack on a school in Awram al-Koubra, Aleppo countryside where the Syrian Government dropped an incendiary bomb on 26 August, according to accounts from survivors of the attack.
Eight students died in the blaze the followed with 50 others suffering fatal burns over up to 80 per cent of their bodies.
“There is no evidence of any opposition fighters or lawful targets near the school,” the Commission concluded....http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=45858&Cr=syria&Cr1=#.UjdEyX-IzJc
16/9/13
Syrie/attaque chimique: un "crime de guerre", selon Ban Ki-moon...
ReplyDeleteL'utilisation d'armes chimiques en Syrie, attestée par le rapport des experts des Nations unies, est un "crime de guerre", a déclaré lundi le secrétaire général de l'Onu Ban Ki-moon, en réclamant que les responsables "rendent des comptes".
"C'est un crime de guerre et une violation flagrante du protocole 1925 ainsi que d'autres normes du droit international", lit-on dans le texte du discours de M.Ban lors de consultations à huis clos au Conseil de sécurité de l'Onu.
Le secrétaire général a soumis au Conseil le rapport des experts qui ont enquêté en Syrie et ont trouvé des "preuves flagrantes et convaincantes" de l'utilisation de gaz sarin le 21 août dernier près de Damas. Le document précise que l'attaque du 21 août, qui a fait plus de 1400 morts selon Washington, a été perpétrée à l'aide de "roquettes sol-sol contenant du gaz sarin".
http://fr.rian.ru/world/20130916/199317974.html
16/9/13
Russian Lawmaker Slams US for ‘Silence’ Over Killing of Syrian Kurds...
ReplyDeleteMOSCOW, September 18 (RIA Novosti) – A senior Russian lawmaker bristled at Washington on Wednesday for its “silence” about the recent killing of hundreds of civilian Kurds by a jihadist rebel group linked to al-Qaida in Syria’s civil war.
Some 450 Kurds, most of them women and children, were killed by the al-Nusra Front between July 28 and August 2 near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The Front is linked to al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist group by the United Nations.
“Why is the US silent?” Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, said on Twitter.
“Where is the moral compass of [US Secretary of State] John Kerry?” he added in an apparent reference to Kerry’s own reported use of the idiom.
In late August, Kerry was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that anyone who thinks that the August 21 chemical attack outside Damascus was fabricated needs to check “their own moral compass.” Washington insisted that the deadly attack, which killed hundreds, was carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, while Damascus and Moscow blamed anti-Assad rebels for the attack.
In early August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attacks on Kurdish civilians.
Kurds are Syria’s largest ethnic minority, accounting for more than 10 percent of the country’s 23 million population, and are mostly concentrated in impoverished northeastern regions sandwiched between Turkey and Iraq, according to The Associated Press.
Until recently, the Kurdish areas appeared relatively calm amid Syria’s civil war, which has claimed more than 100,000 lives since March 2011, according to the United Nations and Western media reports. But recent jihadist attacks on Kurdish communities along the Turkish border caused tens of thousands of Kurds to flee to neighboring Iraq, the reports said.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20130918/183558812/Russian-Lawmaker-Slams-US-for-Silence-Over-Killing-of-Syrian-Kurds.html
18/9/13