The Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said Syria holds Qatar fully responsible for the kidnapping of personnel of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors a disengagement accord established in 1974 between Syria and the Israeli enemy which occupies the Syrian Golan.
An official source at the Ministry said that Syria has been closely monitoring the risks facing the UNDOF, and “noticed that UNDOF personnel came under serious attacks by some armed terrorist organizations, particularly the Nusra Front.”
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that “Syria, which has always asserted its respect of the U.N. mission as part of its international obligations, first registered the two abduction cases affecting the Filipino battalion a year ago, and more recently the Fijian force, which were carried out with the direct complicity and incitement of Qatar.”
The source stressed Qatar's ties with the Nusra Front, an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, in terms of funding and arming the terrorist organization. These ties, the source said, “are no longer unknown to the U.N. and the international community.”
“While stressing that the kidnapping of UNDOF personnel is an unforgivable crime, Syria affirms that the Nusra Front criminals wouldn’t have been able to commit such acts had they not been directly emboldened by Qatar, which showed willingness to spend millions of dollars under the pretext of it making efforts to release the abducted U.N. personnel,” the source added.
The source also pointed out that Syria condemns terrorism under whatever pretext it is committed in compliance with the rules of the Security Councils’ resolutions 1373 and 2170, which provide for combating terrorism and halting its funding.
While condemning terrorism, the source said that Syria “demands that the Security Council shoulder its responsibility of stopping these Qatari practices which contravene international law."
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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