Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
April 30, 2022
The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) supports the UN General Assembly adoption of a resolution (document A/77/L.52) that requires the General Assembly to meet every time a veto is used by the Security Council. Lichtenstein tabled the text titled “Standing mandate for a General Assembly debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council.” It renders the convening process automatic and mandates the President of the General Assembly to convene a formal meeting within 10 working days after casting the veto.
During the past several years, the veto had turned into a Russian and Chinese weapon to defend their interests and partners at the expense of the innocent people in Syria. Instead of being a tool for peace, the veto power has become a tool for the crimes that the Assad regime, Russia and Iran are committing against the Syrian people. Russia used the veto 16 times in order to shield the murderous Assad regime from any accountability or punishment.
Over more than a decade, the international community has been unable to establish peace in Syria or hold the Assad regime accountable for its war crimes against the Syrian people. Its roles were limited to trying to improve the humanitarian conditions of the displaced people while ignoring the demands of the Syrian people for freedom, dignity, and salvation from the regime that resorts to genocide to silence opponents, as the whole world witnessed in the Tadamon Massacre in Damascus.
The United Nations was also unable to force the Assad regime to release any of the hundreds of thousands of detainees who suffer brutal torture in the regime’s human slaughterhouses. It is imperative, therefore, that the international organization reconsider its laws in order to achieve the goals for which it was found, including restricting the use of the veto and prevent its use as a weapon legitimizes the killing of peoples and the suppression of their will.
The SOC supports all resolutions that serve humanity and seek to bring peace to the world, especially in Syria, which is still subjected to the terrorism of the Assad regime and its allies. It also stresses that ending the Syrian tragedy requires holding the Assad regime accountable for its crimes and supporting a full political transition in accordance with UN resolutions.
