Syrian Envoy: Security Council Approval of No-Fly Zone in Syria Impossible

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said that the UN Security Council is the only authority vested with the power to impose a no-fly zone over any given world state, and stressed that the UN body may not ratify a no-fly zone over Syria.

In an interview with the Lebanese NBN TV channel, Jaafari, said that western countries are raising the issue of chemical weapons use in Syria to exert pressure on Syria in order to get concessions from the Muslim state.

Responding to the recent statements made by US Secretary of State John Kerry that if Damascus use of chemical weapons is proved, a no-fly zone can be imposed on Syria or the opposition will be equipped with better and more arms, he said that a no-fly zone can only be implemented via the Security Council, which is impossible to happen on the case of Syria.

But with regard to the equipment of the opposition, it should be said that the statement is not much worth because this is already happening, he added.

He pointed out that Turkey has opened its borders to all forms of infiltration, training, funding and sponsoring of terrorists who have come from across the world, noting that UN Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi informed the Security Council a week ago that there are 40,000 armed foreign terrorists fighting in Syria.

Jaafari said while the West is fully capable of conspiring against Syria and is doing so now, it cannot produce a Security Council resolution allowing it to impose a no-fly zone over Syria or part of the country.

He also noted that Syria presented an official request to the UN Secretary-General to help investigate the use of chemical weapons in the town of Khan al-Asal in Aleppo Countryside, but when the Security Council convened to discuss this issue, the ambassadors of France and Britain made unsubstantiated claims that chemical weapons had been used in Homs four months before that, prompting the Russian Chairman of the Council to ask them why they waited four months to speak of this, but they didn’t answer; instead they requested that Homs be listed among the areas that the proposed inspection team should visit.

Jaafari said that Russia’s representative to the UN Vitaly Chrukin criticized the French-British move, considering it an attempt to undermine the official request for investigating chemical weapons use in Aleppo, explaining that the West’s goal from this is to repeat the Iraqi scenario by opening Syria to undisciplined inspection covered by UN mechanisms and undermine Syria’s sovereignty by making claims of chemical weapons use.