Syria wants Turkey, S Arabia, Qatar, Israel punished

Syria's permanent ambassador to the United Nations has called on the world body to punish “the terrorist coalition of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel”.

At a UN Security Council session on Tuesday, Bashar al-Jaafari said the coalition has been seeking to destroy Syria by fanning the flames of terrorism and shedding the blood of Syrian people.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011. Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- are reportedly supporting the militants in Syria.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al-Hussein has said that more than 200,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict since March 2011.

The Syrian envoy to the UN further voiced support for the Palestinian people, saying the terrorist coalition aims to destroy any solution for the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

“We urge the UN and its Security Council to shoulder their responsibilities and put an end to Israel’s occupation and its barbaric policies and continuous aggressions in addition to committing Israel to withdraw from the occupied Arab lands to the line of June 4th 1967, in accordance with the UN relevant resolutions,” al-Jaafari added.

The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said in an interview with the Associated Press on October 2 that the Palestinian national unity government had asked the UN Security Council to “force Israel to negotiate in good faith the end of occupation within a time frame.”

Mansour also stated that Palestinians expect the council to adopt a draft resolution that leads to the pullout of Israelis from the occupied Palestinian territories by November 2016.

The United States, Israel’s staunch ally, is almost certain to veto such a UN resolution.