The Syrian British Council calls upon the UK to condemn the normalisation by the UAE of international crimes committed by the Syrian regime.
The war in Syria is not over, and impunity still persists. While UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan was in Damascus yesterday, tens of thousands of civilians are still being unlawfully detained, tortured and killed. Millions are still forcibly displaced outside of their homes. The Syrian regime forces are continuously and deliberately destroying health facilities and targeting humanitarian workers. The perpetrators of Syria’s gross human rights violations and war crimes are still roaming free with impunity.
Any efforts to normalise or rehabilitate al-Assad regime will undoubtedly consolidate its brutality, preventing reaching a political solution that could stabilise the region and undermine the international rule-based order.
Instead of rewarding its survival against the will of the Syrian people, this regime should be held accountable for its repeated use of chemical weapons, its monstrous suppression of democratic voices and its transformation of the country into a safe passage for massive illicit drug trafficking operations.
Therefore, and based on your continuous and persistent emphasis on the necessity to hold al-Assad accountable, we call upon the UK Government to act swiftly and decisively to make it clear to its Arab partners that the UK will never tolerate the legitimisation of al-Assad and that the reconstruction of Syria cannot take place without the full implementation of the UNSCR 2254, in a way that ensures political transition and accountability for human rights abuses and war crimes.
The Syrian British Council (SBC)
London, 10 November 2021.
