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U.N. Rights Council’s Resolution Calls for End to Fighting in Syrian Town U.N. Rights Council Passes Resolution Calling for End to Fighting in Syrian Town
(about 3 hours later)
GENEVA — The United Nations Human Rights Council went into an emergency session on Syria on Wednesday to debate a draft resolution that called for an immediate end to fighting around the strategic town of Qusayr and that condemned intervention by foreign fighters supporting President Bashar al-Assad. GENEVA — The United Nations Human Rights Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Wednesday that calls for an immediate end to fighting around Qusayr, a strategic Syrian town, and condemns the intervention of foreign combatants on the government’s side in the Syrian civil war.
The draft resolution, referring to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s militant Shiite group, condemned the presence of foreign fighters siding with the government as a serious threat to regional security, highlighting concern over the increasing spillover of the conflict across Syria’s borders, exemplified by shootings and rocket attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday. Russia spoke out sharply against the resolution, which was co-sponsored by the United States, laying bare their deep divisions over the Syrian conflict even as they try to convene a conference in Geneva to broker an end to the bloodshed.
Amid tensions between the West and Russia over the supply of arms to Syria, the proposed resolution, sponsored by the United States, Turkey and Qatar, condemned the use of ballistic missiles and other heavy weapons by pro-government forces against civilians, including in Qusayr. It also condemns “all forms of violence, including terrorist acts and acts of violence or intimidation that may foment sectarian tensions.” The 47-member council passed the resolution by a vote of 36 to 1, with eight abstentions and two absentees. The measure also condemns the use of ballistic missiles and other heavy weapons by the Syrian Army and allied militias in the assault on Qusayr, resulting in heavy civilian casualties.
The resolution demands access for United Nations and other humanitarian agencies to all civilians affected by the conflict by authorizing cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid as an urgent priority. The resolution, also co-sponsored by Turkey and Qatar, criticizes the presence of foreign combatants supporting President Bashar al-Assad — a reference to Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese militant Shiite group — warning that its involvement poses a serious threat to regional stability.
“The world is watching and they will be held accountable,” Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the American ambassador to the council, said before the start of the session, referring to Syria and its allies. Asked about the value of another debate and resolution on Syria, she said the council “is here to establish a record that can be used in the future to ensure accountability and prevent impunity.” In comments to reporters before the debate on the resolution began, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the United States ambassador to the Human Rights Council, said the resolution aimed to tell the Assad regime and its proxies that they would be held accountable for human rights violations. Recent Syrian airstrikes and bombardments of Qusayr have reportedly killed 183 civilians, she said.
Ms. Donahoe dismissed suggestions that the resolution and debate posed an obstacle to efforts to convene a conference on Syria in Geneva aimed at ending the conflict and initiating a political transition. “We don’t see this as undermining or inconsistent in any way,” she said. “The assault on Qusayr is the latest in the regime’s attempts to use sectarian-driven war to divide the Syrian people,” she told the council. “There is no place in a future Syria for Assad or members of his regime who have ordered or committed atrocities. As the international community works to support a political settlement, we must also support the groundwork for accountability.”
Ms. Donahoe dismissed suggestions that the resolution posed an obstacle to efforts by the United States and Russia to convene the peace conference on Syria. “We don’t see this as undermining or inconsistent” with peace initiatives, she told reporters. “Those other conversations are ongoing.”
But Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, speaking in Moscow, criticized the resolution as “odious and one-sided,” and Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Alexei Borodavkin, told the council that this “dangerous and hypocritical” resolution was “untimely, counterproductive and likely to complicate the launch of the peace process in Syria.”
He expressed surprise that the United States had not included any reference to the initiative, reached by Mr. Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry, in the resolution.
Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui, rejecting reports of any massacre in Qusayr, also condemned the resolution, calling it “a message of political and moral support to the terrorists.”
The United Nations top human rights official, Navi Pillay, meanwhile, had equally blunt words for states supplying arms to either side of the conflict. Speaking two days after the European Union lifted its embargo on arms supplies to Syria’s opposition forces and Russia decided to supply an advanced air defense system to President Assad, she warned that “the conflict in Syria is spinning out of control.”
Supplying weapons and ammunition to either side “emboldens the belligerents,” she said in an opening statement to the council. If the conflict continues on its present trajectory or deteriorates further, she added, “increased intercommunal massacres are a certainty, rather than a risk.”