kayhan.ir

News ID: 52113
Publish Date : 22 April 2018 - 20:33

UN Special Envoy’s Parleys in Tehran on Syria

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura has met with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Jaber Ansari here to discuss the latest developments in Syria.
During the lunch meeting held in honor of the UN delegation’s visit to Tehran, the two sides explored the ways to implement Astana agreements.
The final document of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi as well as the Iran-UN cooperation to put an end to the Syria crisis and restore peace and security to the war-torn country were also among the main issues discussed.
Ansari stated that a common objective for all parties was to "ensure the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Syria, and to ensure the country does not disintegrate” while enacting initiatives which "pave the way for the Syrian people to decide for their country’s future.”
De Mistura praised Ansari’s "good advice on how we can promote a concrete, real, political process”, adding "the alternative is very dangerous”.
De Mistura arrived in Tehran on Saturday after his visits to the capitals of other guarantor states of the ceasefire regime in Syria, namely Russia and Turkey.
The UN envoy will meet with European ministers and American officials in a conference slated for April 24 and 25 in Brussels.
His visit comes after a U.S.-led airstrike on government targets under the pretext of a chemical attack which Washington pinned on Damascus without any evidence.
Iranian Ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad blasted the U.S., UK and France for waging a "unilateral assault" on Syria, warning of the "destabilizing" consequences of the trio's assumption to be beyond the law.
Baeidinejad said Saturday that the three Western countries' attack on Syria shows their willingness "to resort to unilateral policies to enforce disarmament obligations despite there being an internationally verifiable treaty in place."
"This is quite worrisome," he wrote in an article for British online newspaper The Independent.
He was referring to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), an arms control treaty that outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons and their precursors.
Syria, which is a signatory to the CWC, surrendered its chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN.
However, Western states blamed the Damascus government for an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb town of Douma on April 7.
"Unfortunately, the U.S., the UK and France acted in total disregard of the terms of the CWC and resorted to a unilateral assault on Syria, without authorization from the UN, which is a clear violation of the UN Charter and against international law," Baeidinejad said.
"The fact that a few countries consider themselves above the law, and are prepared to put themselves in the position of prosecutor, inspector and judge, without any legitimate mandate, in order to launch an attack on a UN member is destabilizing to say the least," he added.
The Iranian ambassador to London further questioned "why the U.S. and its allies could not postpone their action until the inspectors ... could reach Douma and start their inspection activity."
Baeidinejad said the tripartite action on Syria "undermines global and multilateral efforts against the development and use of weapons of mass destruction; it also endangers global and regional peace and security. Civilization is based on a simple principle that the use of force should be contained by the rule of law, and that the rule of law should be applied to all without exception."