HE the Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani has warned of any delay to handling the current tragic situation in Aleppo, noting that this would have serious repercussions on the future of Syria and the fate of its people.
Speaking during an extraordinary meeting for Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League’s headquarters in Cairo, the minister stressed the need to take serious and effective steps at the Arab and international levels to solve the Syrian crisis.
He said there is no justification or logic that allows the Arab League to fail to fulfil its role towards the Syrian people in the midst of these heinous crime that the Syrian regime should be held responsible for, and the grave breaches of international humanitarian law, besides the violation of the rights of innocent civilians in Aleppo and elsewhere.
He called on the Arab countries to support the move to hold an emergency meeting for the UN General Assembly as the only choice afforded by the UN charter and backed by historical precedents, to protect the Syrian people.
HE Sheikh Mohamed stressed Qatar’s stance that calls for an immediate ceasefire across Syria and the need for the Arab League to take a united stance and start working with the concerned international sides to find a mechanism that compels the Syrian regime to stop attacks against civilians, lift the siege on all Syrian regions, allow the entrance of international relief agencies and humanitarian aid to the affected areas, and ensure that civilians are allowed to safely leave Aleppo until the battles subside.
Meanwhile, thousands of traumatised Syrians left the rebel enclave of Aleppo yesterday as the UN voted to deploy observers there and said it planned new peace talks in Geneva in February.
“It is the intention of the United Nations to convene those negotiations in Geneva on 8 February 2017,” UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said after the Security Council unanimously adopted a French-drafted resolution to monitor evacuations from Aleppo, with Russia’s backing.
But in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said after Russian ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was shot dead by a policeman in Ankara that the killing could “disrupt” the peace process in Syria and harm Turkish-Russian ties.
Families in Aleppo had spent hours waiting in below-freezing temperatures, sheltering from the rain in bombed-out apartment blocks and waiting desperately for news of a new wave of departures.
Syrian Civil Defence members hand aid to people who were evacuated from the last rebel-held pockets of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo, as they arrive yesterday in the opposition-controlled Khan al-Assal region, west of the embattled city.
