UN Security Council condemns Syrian coastal violence

According to diplomats, the United Nations Security Council has approved a statement denouncing widespread violence in Syria’s coastal area and urging Syria’s interim authorities to rescue all Syrians, irrespective of ethnicity or religion.

In december last year, as the crisis in Syria evolved following the ouster of President Bashar Assad, an almost decade-old UN Security Council resolution was being represented as essential for what comes next. “The people of Syria stand at a moment of history — and a moment of opportunity. That opportunity cannot be missed,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated. “The process must be guided by the underlying principles of Security Council Resolution 2254.”

The U.S. and Russian diplomats drafted a presidential statement that is due to be formally assumed on Friday, the diplomats expressed. Such statements are made by consensus. It comes after the 15-member council gathered behind closed doors on Syria. Many days of violent conflicts in Syria’s coastal region brought loyalists of ousted President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s latest Islamist sovereigns. A war monitoring group stated more than 1,000 people had lost their lives.

Family members, including women and children, were killed in Latakia and Tartus where al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect lived as part of a string of sectarian killings by rival parties, the U.N. human rights office stated. “The Security Council calls on the interim authorities to protect all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religion,” the council said in a statement. 

“Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these mass killings accountable.”

Syria’s acting President Ahmed Sharaa stated mass killings of Assad’s minority sect threatened his mission to unite the nation, and pledged to discipline those responsible, including his own partners if necessary. “The Security Council welcomes the Syrian interim authorities’ public condemnation of instances of violence and calls for further measures to prevent its recurrence,” according to a council statement.

It also “reaffirms its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria and calls on all States to respect these principles and to refrain from any action or interference that may further destabilize Syria.”

According to the statement, there were no names of countries. However, since Assad was expelled in December, Israel has conducted extensive airstrikes on Syrian military headquarters and advanced forces into a U.N.-monitored demilitarized area within Syria, in what it has stated was a defensive and indefinite step.

The Security Council statement also highlights the significance of countering terrorism in Syria and voices “grave concern over the acute threat posed by foreign terrorist fighters,” urging Syria to take “decisive measures to address the threat.”