Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
September 10, 2021
Participation of the Assad regime in the first global counter-terrorism summit, which will be organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), in collaboration with the United Nations (UN), represents a pathetic scandal. It also represents a total disregard of the hundreds of thousands of the victims of the Assad regime and its allies.
Organizers of such events are still unable to understand the reality and responsibilities that they must bear. As a result, they get involved in serving a regime that is responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and the use of chemical weapons, and state terrorism against the Syrian people, neighboring countries and beyond.
Instead of defending the rights of the Syrian people as victims of the Assad regime’s terrorism; working to save them from its criminality, appreciating their sacrifices and working to find the means to support their struggle for freedom, such moves come to provide free services to the Assad regime and enable it to display false images in an attempt to tarnish its image.
Now that terrorists and sponsors of terrorism were invited to such a summit, terrorists can enjoy peace. There is no doubt that the organizers, who were unable to notice the presence of terrorists on the list of invitees, will not be able to find them anywhere else. The next step will ironically see accusations and lies be brought against victims of terrorism, the refugees fleeing from terrorist regimes, and the activists imprisoned in those regimes’ prisons.
The Syrian Opposition Coalition, on behalf of all Syrians and all the free people around the world, condemns this grave sin against the Syrian people, international law, and the victims of terrorism. It demands the expulsion of representatives of the Assad regime from this conference and banning them from attending any similar events until a political transition in Syria is reached.
