EU Parliament condemns terror against minorities in Syria

FUNNY ENOUGH: THE EP ACCUSES THE EP FOR THEIR OWN ‚DEADLY SILENCE‘ & CONTINUED TO DO SO BY DOING NOTHING (MESOP)

By Roni Alasor / Lorin Sarkisian – Brussels / Stressburg, 17 April 2014 – Ararat News (ANP) – In a resolution supported by all the political groups today in Strasbourg, the European Parliament (EP) broke its “deadly silence” and condemned terror attacks from the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and ISIS terror organisations against Christians, Armenians and Kurds in Syria and called for protection of all the vulnerable communities and  establishment of safe havens along the Turkish-Syrian border. MEPs urged Turkish government to open its borders for humanitarian aid.

The EP Members referred to the recent violence against the Armenian town of Kessab and the Kurdish town of Kobane : The EU resolution “strongly condemns the recent attacks against certain religious and ethnic communities in Syria, notably the Christians, Armenians and Kurds, and calls on all the parties involved to stop all actions aimed at inciting interethnic and interconfessional conflict; stresses that all actors involved in the conflict have a duty to protect all the different minorities present in the country”.

The European Parliament also called for establishment of safe havens along the Turkish-Syrian border and “Syrian-led, inclusive political process with the backing of the international community and including ethnic and religious minorities” as only solution to the crisis in the country.

GUE/NGL MEP Jürgen Klute said: “In Syrian Kurdistan in the north of the country the violence has been limited to an extent and people there have set up a basic democratic structure. As a result many refugees have fled there. But the area remains isolated and cut off from humanitarian aid. We need to break isolation of this region, which sits on the Turkish border, so as to get aid through. We appeal to the Turkish government to open its borders for humanitarian aid.”

GUE/NGL MEP Alda Sousa added: “The Kurdish population living on the Iraq-Turkey-Syria border are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. We also must draw attention to the plight of the half a million Palestinians who were refugees in Syria and have now been displaced once more in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon.”

Socialists & Democrats (SD) vice-president Véronique de Keyser MEP said: “We strongly condemn all acts of violence targeting minorities in Syria, such as the recent attacks against Armenians in Kassab and against Kurds in Kobane; we mourn Father Frans Van der Lugt, an exceptional man who stayed in the besieged area of Homs to help the local population in their everyday suffering; and we call again for the release of all detained political prisoners, intellectuals, religious figures, journalists, photographers, humanitarian aid workers and human rights activists, with special attention to 2011 Sakharov Prize winner Razan Zaitouneh.”