European Council President urges UN Security Council action on Syria
European Council President Herman van Rompuy has called for the United Nations Security Council to adopt a clear resolution on Syria and end the “spiral of criminal, sectarian violence” at the heart of “the world’s most unstable region.”
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level debate on September 25, Van Rompuy said the international community “absolutely must avoid a dreadful precedent being set on the use of chemical weapons – an abhorrent crime against humanity.”
As reported by the UN News Centre, Van Rompuy called the role of the UN “indispensable” in the controlling and destroying Syria’s arsenal, underscored time and again by the 28 governments of the European Union (EU).
“It is urgent for the Security Council, together with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), to take the necessary decisions to ensure the swift and secure destruction of Syria’s poison gas and nerve agent stocks,” Van Rompuy said, following UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s report and the inventory from the Syrian Government.
Van Rompuy said that a breakthrough on chemical weapons is an important political opening, “in the black wall of Syria’s doom, it will be a first crack.”
He urged continued hard work towards the so-called Geneva II meeting, which would include representatives of Syrian parties as well as senior United States, Russian and UN officials.
“The European Union is ready to provide all support needed to achieve a political settlement,” Van Rompuy said. He noted, however, that reconciliation is a long process. “No longer waging war is one thing, living again together quite another.”
(Photo: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas)
