Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
March 19, 2022
The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) views the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) reception of the war criminal Bashar al-Assad as a dangerous precedent, a departure from the Arab League’ resolutions of the, a violation of international sanctions, a reward for his crimes, and a calculated insult to the blood of a million Syrians that Assad has so far killed.
The visit of the war criminal Assad to the UAE purposefully coincided with the 11th anniversary of the start of the Syrian Revolution when the Assad regime’s forces killed the first Syrian civilian. Indeed, the timing reflects a callous disregard for the will of the Syrian people and the enormous sacrifices they have been making for the past eleven years in their struggle against the murderous Assad regime and its enablers. We did not expect a sisterly country to receive this murderer or seek to rehabilitate his regime.
The UAE must rectify its position and abide by the general Arab and international position in isolating this murderous regime and abstaining from normalizing relations with it or trying to re-legitimize it. Receiving the war criminal Assad is a grave mistake that must be rectified. Acceptance of the war criminal Assad represents condoning of his atrocious crimes against the Syrian people. Assad has displaced half of Syria’s population, destroyed the country, and opened the borders wide to terrorist militias, especially the Iranian backed militias whose malicious arms reached the UAE itself through the Houthi militia’s repeated missile attacks on UAE targets.
The UAE previously supported the Syrian people and used to have honorable positions in international forums in supporting the Syrian people and condemning the Assad regime. It is imperative that it reassume its original positions by standing with the Syrian people in their just demands and distancing itself from the Assad regime and the axis of evil, namely the Iranian mullahs’ regime and its tools.
