Equipo Nizkor - UNSC S/2016/419 - Letter from Syria with information about violations by armed terrorist groups of the Aleppo truce agreement.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2016/419

Distr.: General
9 May 2016
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 5 May 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

On instructions from my Government, I should like to transmit to you herewith information about violations by armed terrorist groups of the Aleppo truce agreement and terrorist attacks against peaceable residential neighbourhoods in the city of Aleppo and the city of Mukharram in Homs governorate.

After exhaustive efforts culminating in arrangements for a truce in the city of Aleppo, and after the Syrian Arab Army carried out its commitments thereunder, armed terrorist groups deliberately violated those arrangements in the morning of Thursday, 5 May 2016, just a few short hours after the truce went into effect, by raining down an intensive hail of rocket shells, gas cylinder missiles (also known as "hell cannons") and mortar shells on the peaceable residential Aleppo neighbourhoods of Khalidiyah, Jam'iyat al-Zahra', Sulaymaniyah, Salah al-Din, Aziziyah and Maydan. Terrorist attacks on those residential neighbourhoods and on the Dar al-Farah school killed three civilians and caused injuries of varying severity to several others, most of them children, women and elderly persons. The terrorist attacks also caused extensive destruction of private and public property and infrastructure. That criminal violation of the Aleppo truce reveals unmistakably the true face of the armed terrorist groups, who wish nothing but blood and fire for Aleppo. Those terrorist groups, which are supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other States known for their unrestrained support for terrorists, care for nothing except killing Syrians and destroying their country. Even so, there are still some who persist in calling those terrorist groups "the moderate opposition".

In the morning of Thursday, 5 May 2016, the terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) organization detonated a car bomb and a motorcycle bomb in the main square of the city of Upper Mukharram in Homs governorate, killing 12 civilians and causing injuries of varying severity to 40 others, including children, women and elderly persons.

Those terrorist attacks are the continuation of a long series of terrorist attacks against numerous Syrian cities, carried out on the orders of the Riyadh, Ankara, and Doha regimes with the goal of undermining any efforts at consolidating truce arrangements and sparing the blood of innocent Syrians. They are an unconcealed attempt to scuttle the Geneva negotiations, and they reflect the fact that the armed terrorist groups have links to the very States and regimes that are trying to market terrorist organizations as "the moderate armed opposition".

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic stresses that these terrorist attacks will not prevent it from continuing to fight terrorism and work for a political solution to the Syrian crisis based on dialogue among Syrians under Syrian leadership, with a view to eradicating terrorism and restoring security and stability to the Syrian people. These cowardly crimes confirm yet again that not only are the Riyadh, Ankara and Doha regimes that are running these terrorist groups failing to comply with Security Council resolutions, but they are willing to actively contravene internationally recognized resolutions in cases where terrorism suits their interests and serves their contemptible purposes. The international community cannot depend at all on those regimes in any international effort to fight terrorism and resolve the crisis in Syria.

The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic calls on the Security Council and the Secretary-General to condemn these terrorist crimes, and calls on the Security Council to carry out its responsibility to maintain international peace and security by taking preventive and punitive measures against regimes and States that support and finance terrorism, in implementation of Security Council resolutions 2170 (2014), 2178 (2014), 2199 (2015) and 2253 (2015).

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

(Signed) Bashar Ja'afari
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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09May16

Letter from Syria with information about violations by armed terrorist groups of the Aleppo truce agreement