DAMASCUS (Xinhua) –
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said on Thursday that his country deserves international support and the removal of U.S. economic sanctions, according to the state news agency SANA.
Mekdad told a UN meeting via a video conference from Damascus that Syria had fought global terrorism and paid “unprecedented prices” from its human and economic resources.
The Syrian people, who have suffered immensely from the crimes committed by terrorist groups, deserve the international community’s support to uphold their rights to sustainable development and early recovery, he noted.
The Syrian people are subject to an economic siege imposed by the U.S. and its Western allies, he said.
He urged the international community to help in ending the coercive economic sanctions and expelling the illegal foreign forces in Syria.
In another development, the Syrian government strongly condemned the recent Zionist airstrikes on the Aleppo International Airport in the northern part of the Arab country, saying it amounts to a “war crime.”
The missile strike on Tuesday damaged the international airport’s runway and rendered it out of service for the second time in less than a week.
“The recurring Israeli attacks, especially the systematic and deliberate targeting of civilian objects in Syria – the latest of which was the targeting of Aleppo International Airport yesterday – amounts to an act of aggression and a war crime according to international law,” the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Wednesday.
The ministry statement said the Zionist regime “must be held to account” for the latest aerial aggression in the war-ravaged Arab country.
“The occupying Israeli regime is once again threatening peace and security in the region, endangering and intimidating civilians, and jeopardizing the safety of civil aviation in Syria and the region,” the statement noted.