Turkey, Qatar denounce Syria’s war on own people

UN rights chief, nations slam Security Council ‘failure’

GENEVA, Feb 25, (Agencies): Turkey and Qatar accused Syria on Monday of attacking Syrian towns with bombs, shells and Scud missiles and called at the main UN human rights forum for perpetrators of atrocities to be brought to justice.

Britain and Switzerland urged the United Nations Security Council to refer war crimes in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for prosecution.

“The (Syrian) regime has lost its legitimacy. It is no longer governing. It is surviving by oppression, terror and massacres,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council.

“Today, the regime is waging a brutal war against the Syrian people through indiscriminate air bombardments and Scud missile attacks against urban areas,” he said. “We have to make sure that all perpetrators will not go unpunished.”

Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohamed al-Attiyah said that “massacres and atrocities” committed by the Syrian regime and its loyalist forces through the use of heavy weapons, including Scud missiles that caused massive destruction in Aleppo, and internationally banned weapons used against unarmed civilians, were in flagrant violation of international law.

“We call on the Security Council to assume its moral and legal responsibilities to stop this humanitarian disaster as well as the atrocities and other crimes perpetuated against the Syrian people and to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice,” he told the Geneva forum.

An estimated 70,000 people have been killed in the nearly two-year-old conflict between President Bashar alAssad’s forces and rebels fighting to topple him, the United Nations says.

More than 900,000 Syrian refugees have fled abroad, including some 185,000 in 17 camps in neighbouring Turkey.

UN investigators said a week ago that Syrian leaders they had identified as suspected war criminals should face the ICC.

Atrocities

“The atrocities in Syria remain foremost in our minds. We cannot stand by and allow this situation to continue,” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a minister in Britain’s Foreign Office, told the Geneva forum. “Those responsible for the worst violations and abuses must be held to account, including through the ICC.”

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter acknowledged that the Security Council remained divided on whether to refer Syria to the ICC, but said that pressure to do so was building.

“Combating impunity is indispensable if we are to build sustainable peace in Syria and elsewhere,” he told the talks.

Russia and China, both permanent council members, have shielded Syria by blocking Western efforts to take stronger UN action, such as sanctions, against Syria to try to end the war.

More than 50 countries asked the Security Council last month to refer the Syria crisis to the Hague-based ICC to send a signal to Syrian authorities. The letter, sent by Switzerland, was signed by Britain and France, but not the United States.

Meanwhile, the UN human rights chief and several nations criticised the Security Council Monday for failing to take action to halt spiralling violence in Syria and bring to justice perpetrators of abuses in the conflict.

“The Security Council has so far failed with regard to Syria,” Navi Pillay told ministers at the start of a regular UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

Pillay said her office had pushed for the Security Council to refer the conflict to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after “repeated reports of wide- spread or systematic crimes and violations.”

The ICC can only investigate war crimes if asked to do so by the Security Council but the body is deadlocked in its handling of the conflict by disagreements between its Western members and staunch Syrian ally Russia, plus China.

“For close to two years, the international community has failed to put a stop to the carnage,” said UN General Assembly president Vuk Jeremic.

The UN estimates that more than 70,000 people have died in the two years since the Syrian government began a crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

Report

In its latest report published this month, a UN commission of inquiry found that war crimes by both government forces and rebels were spiralling with the conflict becoming increasingly radicalised and sectarian.

It also called for the Security Council to refer the conflict to the ICC.

“For how long we, the international community, will allow this humanitarian tragedy to continue?” Davutoglu asked the council.

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime “has lost its legitimacy,” he said.

Davutoglu stressed that the Security Council had the responsibility to help ensure that humanitarian assistance reached all of the estimated more than four million Syrians in desperate need.

“It is incomprehensible to hinder humanitarian access,” he said, calling for a Security Council resolution “to ensure humanitarian access and introduce measures to those who prevent such access.” Frans Timmermanns, the foreign minister of The Netherlands, also insisted the ICC address the Syrian crisis. “The bloodshed must stop,” he said.

Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter said the world was witnessing a “human catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe”.