Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
We are writing to you today regarding the dire humanitarian situation in Idlib, Syria. Since
last December, the Syrian regime and its allies have undertaken a vicious assault against
civilians in the northwest. The campaign has so far resulted in more than 2,500 casualties
and many more injuries. Over half a million people have been forcibly displaced from their
homes and are now suffering a desperate and precarious existence.
As a voice of Syrian democrats throughout the UK and further afield, we request your
support in helping to protect all civilians in Syria’s northwestern region from the depraved
crimes being committed by the Assad regime and its foreign allies. Taking into account
recent developments, we now see an opportunity for the mobilisation of a UK-US-French
partnership with their NATO ally, Turkey, to push back the Syrian regime and enforce a
no-fly zone over northwestern Syria as a means of halting the Assad regime and Russia’s
airstrikes against civilians. This can be achieved without the need for a ground deployment
of western forces, but via such mechanisms as the use of radar jamming and surface-to-air
missile systems on the Turkish side of the border to create an umbrella of aerial safety over
northern Syria; or via the launching of precision missile strikes from British and allied naval
assets in the Mediterranean.
At this point in time, we believe that the action of protecting Syrian civilians from the Assad
regime is as much in the long-term interests of protecting the standing of Britain and its
democratic allies around the world as it is a humanitarian imperative.
Yours sincerely
Syrian British Council
