Washington calls for pressure on Iran and Russia to hold the Assad regime accountable

Washington has called on the international community to put pressure on Russia and Iran until the Assad regime is held accountable for its crimes committed against Syrian civilians since 2011.

This came in the statement of the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield, during a virtual meeting organized by the Washington Mission to the International Organization under the title “Syria: Work towards achieving comprehensive justice”, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings currently being held in New York.

“We support accountability for all atrocities in Syria, and we consider that accountability is the first step towards achieving justice for the victims and bringing peace to Syria,” Greenfield told the meeting participants, including representatives of member states of the General Assembly, as well as representatives of international human rights organizations.

“After more than a decade of conflict, the evidence of atrocities committed by the Assad regime, some of which amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, has become overwhelming,” she added.

Greenfield added, “The Assad regime committed crimes of systematic torture and sexual violence, arbitrarily detained people, used illegal chemical weapons to attack its own citizens, and dropped barrel bombs on markets and hospitals.”
And despite this blatant brutality, Russia and Iran continue to protect Assad from accountability.

Greenfield added, “We therefore call on the United Nations and all influential actors to continue to pressure Russia and Iran until those responsible for the crimes committed in Syria by all parties are held accountable.”

At the conclusion of her statement, Greenfield affirmed the commitment of the administration of US President Joe Biden to provide political, diplomatic and financial support for accountability and reconciliation efforts in Syria.
Since mid-March 2011, the Syrian opposition has been calling for an end to more than 49 years of rule by the Assad family, and the establishment of a democratic state in which power is transferred. However, the Assad regime adopted the military option to stop the protests and push Syria into a cycle of violence, embodied by bloody battles between regime forces.

Assad and the opposition are still going on today, and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, according to UN statistics.

Source: Anatolia