Saudi, Turkey, Qatar behind dangerous escalation: Syria

May 24, 2016 By administrator

Syria has written to to the United Nations, blaming Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar for Monday terrorist bombings which killed at leas 154 people in the coastal cities of in Tartous and Jableh.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the United Nations, saying the blasts are a “dangerous escalation by the hostile and extremist regimes in Riyadh, Ankara and Doha.”

The letter said the three countries seek to derail UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva and frustrate efforts to stop bloodshed in Syria as well as undermine “remarkable achievements” of the Syrian army against terrorists.

The ministry said the Security Council’s inaction in the face of “heinous crimes being perpetrated by foreign-sponsored terrorist groups across Syria has emboldened those regimes that support terrorism to deploy their terrorist pawns to Syria.”

The letter also criticized Britain, France and the US over their refusal to label Jaysh al-Islam and al-Qaeda-affiliated Ahrar al-Sham as terrorist groups, saying the approach speaks to their lack of seriousness in fighting terrorism.

Bombings and terrorist attacks, the letter said, will not dent Syria’s determination to combat terrorism.

It urged the UN Security Council to adopt immediate punitive measures against the states that sponsor terrorism and undermine international peace and security.

More than 300 people were also wounded in the Monday attacks in the Mediterranean coastal cities, some of them critically, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Lebanese Hezbollah movement condemned the deadly bombings in a statement, saying they called for a clear and resolute stance against regional and global powers supporting terrorism.

“These genocides, which are being carried out by Takfiri groups with backing and support by international secret services and with a cover by well-known Arab officials and countries, are the result of a dark ideology that aims to spread fear and chaos in our Arab and Muslim societies.”

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces.

United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis.

If Damascus falls, Europe won’t be far behind – US senator

March 18, 2015 By administrator

he streets of Syria’s northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014. (Reuters)

As a new report details the devastation wrought upon Syria by four years of rebellion, a Virginia state senator who once thanked the Syrian government for defending Christians is worried about the fate of Damascus, the Middle East and Europe.

“If Damascus falls, the dreaded black and white flag of ISIS will fly” over Syria, Virginia state Senator Richard Black told RT. “Within a period of months after the fall of Damascus, Jordan will fall and Lebanon will fall,” he said, adding that the self-proclaimed Islamic State would then target Europe next.

Black is no stranger to the Syrian crisis. Last year, he wrote a letter thanking the government in Damascus for a “gallant and effective campaign” to liberate Christian villages on the border with Lebanon. Most Americans are not aware that Christianity started in present-day Syria, he pointed out.

Years of US interventions in the Middle East and elsewhere have resulted in vast numbers of displaced Christians in Syria, Iraq and the Balkans. “If you look at the history of American involvement,” since the first Iraq war, Black told RT, “the one central theme has been that in each instance we’ve purged Christians from various countries.” Christians who lived in Kosovo for over a thousand years “are gone, completely annihilated.”

During the four-day pogrom in Kosovo 11 years ago, more than 4,000 Christian Serbs were driven out of six towns and nine villages. Over 900 houses and 39 churches were also destroyed by ethnic Albanian rioters.

11th Anniversary of the March pogrom of Serbs in #Kosovo pic.twitter.com/9qBChPRsDj

— Serbian Embassy, US (@SerbiaEmbWashin) March 17, 2015

According to a recent report by the Syrian Centre for Policy Research, six percent of the country’s population has been killed or wounded in the fighting in Syria. Life expectancy went from 79.5 years in 2010 to 55.7 years. More than 5 million Syrians became refugees or migrated in search of work, while 40 percent of the remaining 17.65 million are internally displaced. The country has lost over $200 billion through destruction, looting, capital flight and GDP loss; unemployment is officially at 58 percent; and most of those who have jobs work for the government.

The current conflict in Syria began in 2011, when the US-backed opposition began an armed rebellion against President Bashar Assad’s government during the Arab Spring. By 2013, large portions of eastern Syria and western Iraq had fallen under control of militants known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (IS, or ISIS/ISIL). While declaring the need to fight ISIS, Washington has continued to demand the overthrow of Assad in favor of “moderate opposition.”

Black, who served in the US Marine Corps and retired as a Colonel in the Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps before getting elected to the Virginia legislature, maintains that the Assad government is effectively fighting against the Islamic State and protecting the remaining Christians of Syria. Its fall, he says, would let ISIS quickly seize Jordan and Lebanon, and continue its drive westward.

“I look at Syria as the center of gravity… for Western civilization,” Black said, using the military strategists’ term for a place or event that can determine the outcome of a war. “If it falls, we’ll begin to see a very rapid advance of Islam on Europe.”

Turkey behind any plots to provoke new war in South Caucasus – Artashes Geghamyan

November 16, 2014 By administrator

In an interview with Tert.am, Head of the Armenian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Artashes Geghamyan commented on the statements by Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate, Russia and Eurasia Program, Carnegie Endowment, and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

According to Mr Thomas de Waal, the “incidents are an illustration of the increased militarization of the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire line over the last 20 years – the most militarized zone in Europe.”

On the other hand, Armenia’s president stated that no war was going to break out.

Even if any plans to provoke war in the region are being devised, it is certainly being done by Turkey because it is seeking to destabilize the South Caucasus to divert the international community’s attention from the activities of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant along the border of Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

“Mr Thomas de Waal must have certain grounds for his conclusions. He studied at Oxford and later wrote a most interesting paper, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, which showed a more or less impartial approach. He has more contacts with Western experts and, as Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, must have arrived at this conclusion. It is suggested that such plans may be devised, but President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement ruling our war in the region is based on much more reliable data. We should not forget the detailed talks over the problem between the Russian and Azerbaijani Presidents, Vladimir Putin Ilham Aliyev, in Sochi, between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Ilham Aliyev in Newport, Wales, and between the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in Paris, mediated by French President François Hollande. In other words, the last two months and a half have seen talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijan presidents and the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing states. Moreover, following the Paris meeting our FM Edward Nalbandian noted positive aspects of the meetings. Therefore, the Armenian president stated (doing so during large-scale military exercises in Nagorno-Karabakh) there was no threat of war. I think that one of the reasons for Serzh Sargsyan’s statement is the fact that by unleashing war after the Minsk Group co-chairing states’ leaders reached certain agreements Azerbaijan would show its disrespect for the Russian president, the US Secretary of State and the French president. Another question is that our supreme commander-in-chief’s statement foiled the plots to destabilize the South Caucasus devised by Azerbaijani and Turkish strategists. Azerbaijan wanted Armenia to retaliate in such a way as to neutralize the extremely negative reaction to Azerbaijan’s act – downing a Nagorno-Karabakh MI-24 helicopter, which had not actually reached the Line of Contact. This is evidence that, even after Azerbaijan resorted to such a provocation, that their plot was foiled, and that country is in an unfavorable situation now. It is clear that Azerbaijan is well aware it cannot any more avoid honoring the agreements reached during the last two months and a half at the meetings with the Minsk Group co-chairing states’ leaders.

As supreme commander-in-chief, President Serzh Sargsyan is well informed of the military potential and morale in the armed forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. A man who saw war, a victorious commander and hero of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] will never say anything absurd about such a serious matter. Moreover, by his statement he re-affirmed Armenia’s commitment to the agreements reached in Sochi, Newport and Paris.