Iran on Wednesday voiced concern about foreign countries’ interference in Syrian affairs, and blamed the current conditions in the Arab country on certain foreign states which fund and arm the Syrian rebels.
“In fact, the situation in Syria has resulted from the combination of different factors, particularly the clandestine and clear efforts made by certain countries which are arming and funding opposition groups to deepen the crisis in the country and tarnish the prospects for ending violence,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva said in a statement.
The statement lauded the massive cooperation shown by the c with the independent international commission.
Earlier, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui dismissed a UN Human Rights Council’s report on the current crisis in Syria, and blamed external parties for fueling unrests in the Arab state.
In its recent report, the council blamed the Syrian government for the crisis in the country.
Hamoui, rejected the panel’s work as “politicized.”
“The crisis is not due to peaceful protests or demands for reform. The crisis is due to the influence of external parties bent on afflicting my country, waging a media war against Syria and imposing economic sanctions against the Syrian people,” Hamui said, addressing the UN Human Rights Council session on Monday.
“Civil war is being ignited … this is a prelude to partition of Syria, this is the aim of Israel and those supporting the endeavor, the prolonged colonization of Arab territories,” he told the session.
Upon Hamoui’s speech at the session, the head of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry, Paulo Pinheiro, said that supplying arms to the Syrian opposition is not correct.
Pinheiro said that a negotiated settlement to end the violence is the only way out of the impasse.
Earlier this month, Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mohammad Khazayee deplored foreign meddling in Syria, and cautioned that arming Syrian rebels would deepen the political crisis in Syria and entail negative consequences for the region.
Addressing a UN General Assembly session at the time, Khazayee stressed that foreign meddling and preventing flow of money and arms to the Syrian rebels should immediately end before a way can be found out of crisis in the Arab state.
The remarks by the Iranian diplomat came after media reports said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar plan to arm Syrian opposition rebels.
Even the Washington Post warned that Arab plans to arm Syria’s opposition fighters could fuel a civil war and lead to a regional conflagration.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar indicated earlier this month that they are prepared to help the Syrian opposition military forces. Kuwait’s parliament passed a nonbinding resolution Thursday calling for the government to provide weapons to the rebels and break ties with Damascus, Washington Post reported.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.
This is while Assad has done a lot in recent months to reform laws and conditions in his country. The Syrian president announced the end to the state of emergency, granted citizenship to many Syrian Kurds and promised parliamentary elections later this year. In January, he issued the latest of thousands of amnesties for those detained since the uprising began.
Syria also in February held a referendum on the country’s new constitution. More than 14 million Syrians over 18 could vote and almost 90 percent of the voters approved a new constitution in the referendum.
Under the new charter, freedom is ‘a sacred right’ and ‘the people will govern the people’ in a multi-party democratic system based on Islamic law, the state television reported.
The document allows multiple political parties to compete in elections for the legislature, sets a limit of two seven-year terms on the president, and eliminates a clause that guarantees political supremacy to Assad’s Ba’ath Party.
