UN Security Council Briefing on Syria (Political-Humanitarian)

INDIA STATEMENT

By

Ambassador R. Ravindra

Deputy Permanent Representative

[Wednesday, 27 October 2021]

Mr. President,

I join others in thanking Special Envoy Geir O. Pedersen for his comprehensive briefing today. I thank  USG Martin Griffiths for the update on humanitarian situation. I also thank the civil society briefer Ms. Albarouki, for her insights.

2. Special Envoy has just briefed us in detail, on the developments in Geneva with regards to the 6^th Constitutional Committee talks and deliberations.

3. It is encouraging that the constitutional committee met last week in Geneva. While there was no major outcome from the meetings, the fact that parties presented their proposals is a positive development. We hope these efforts will energize the political track and help the Special Envoy in his mediation efforts in the coming weeks towards full implementation of UNSCR 2254. We reiterate that the constitutional committee process has to remain a Syrian led and Syrian driven, facilitated by the UN. In this regard, we continue to call on all external actors to desist from adversely influencing the parties concerned.

4. There have also been notable high level regional engagements with Syria. We also take note of Syria’s recent engagement with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. The opening of border between Jordan and Syria will help movement of people and essential goods.

5. On the security front, we remain concerned with the over-all situation in Syria, including the recent ceasefire violations in North West Syria. We condemn in the strongest terms the recent terrorist attack in Damascus, which resulted in the killing of 14 people and injuries to many.

6. India has always believed that terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. The international community must unequivocally condemn, any acts of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, irrespective of the place, time and background of the perpetrators.  We have been referring to the involvement of external actors in Syria and its impact on the growth of terrorism in both Syria and in the region. UN designated terrorist groups such as ISIL and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as mentioned in Secretary General’s recent reports, have continued to gain in strength in Syria. ISIL has continued to launch attacks in areas across Dayr al-Zawr, Hasakah and eastern rural Homs.

7. We believe that a nation-wide comprehensive ceasefire is paramount to the interest of the Syrian people; and will help to ensure that positive developments like the first crossline humanitarian aid operation from Aleppo to Idlib in August can take firm roots, and not remain a ‘one-off’ occurrence. In this regard, we take note of inter-agency crossline operations proposed, that USG referred to earlier.

8. The humanitarian crisis in Syria has not seen much improvement in the recent months. More than 12 million people across Syria remain in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The dire food insecurity situation as documented by the World Food Program has been further aggravated by the compounding water crisis. The drought conditions and reduced water flows in the Euphrates River has further added to problem. While the active Covid cases are increasing every day, particularly in North-West Syria, the vaccination levels continue to remain very low. It is clear that current level of humanitarian assistance remains insufficient and there is an urgent need to scale it up.

8. We note the efforts to ease unilateral coercive measures. We remain confident that such developments would also encourage progress on Early Recovery Projects being carried out by UN agencies and others in Syria.

9. India has continued to extend developmental assistance and human resource development support to Syria through grants and lines of credits for developmental projects, supply of medicine and food, artificial limb fitment camps and capacity building training programs. Just last week we have set up a state-of-the-art Centre of Excellence in IT in Damascus under our grant assistance. India has always had  diplomatic engagement with Syria since the beginning of the conflict. We intend to stay the course and reiterate our steadfast commitment to continue to render all possible support and assistance to the people of Syria.

I Thank You.

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