clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Saudi, Turkey and Gulf call for emergency UN meeting over Syria

December 5, 2016 at 2:01 pm

Representatives of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey have called for an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on the alarming situation in Syria.

In a joint statement issued on Saturday, representatives said that they decided against signing a letter from the representatives of Canada, Costa Rica, Japan, the Netherlands and Togo addressed to the president of the UN General Assembly to convene a formal plenary meeting on the situation in Syria, arguing that the harrowing conditions in Syria justify an emergency special session.

“An emergency situation or a specific crisis should not be treated like any other unusual situation, but as a disturbing and dangerous state of affairs which deserves special attention from the UN General Assembly. From our perspective, this is the nature of the situation in Syria, particularly in the besieged Aleppo,” the joint statement said.

“The alarming humanitarian situation in Aleppo calls for convening an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly to make recommendations on matters relating to peace and global security in the absence of the Security Council’s ability to do so because of the lack of consensus.”

“We have seen in recent weeks, heavy military aggression in Aleppo and its neighbouring areas with severe humanitarian consequences. Reports indicate that hundreds of civilians have been killed, injured or affected by the relentless attack in east of Aleppo. There are no hospitals operating in eastern Aleppo.”

The statement said that the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Coordinator of Emergency Aid has recently submitted a report which stated that about one million Syrians are living under siege. They are starving and denied medical care and humanitarian aid.

Last week, a coalition of over 200 human rights groups called for the General Assembly to hold an emergency special session demanding an end to the attacks on Aleppo.