European Parliament Wants 'Clear Strong' Response on Syria
The European Parliament on Thursday urged a "clear, strong, targeted and united" international response, including "deterrent measures" if needed, to the chemical weapons attack that left hundreds dead in Syria last month.
In a resolution, the parliament noted that "different sources seem to indicate" the Syrian regime was behind the August 21 attack which if proven "is a flagrant breach of international law, a war crime and crime against humanity."
"The international community cannot remain idle," it added as Russia and the United States met in Geneva to discuss plans to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.
Welcoming the plan, the 751-seat assembly added that the use of such weapons "requires a clear, strong, targeted and united response, not excluding eventual deterrent measures."
"In the event of failure to comply, this measure might be imposed on the basis of all the instruments provided for in the United Nations Charter," the resolution said.
The MEPs reiterated that the international community "should bring about a political solution for Syria which can stop the violence" and said the situation in the country "warrants a coherent common approach" by the EU's 28 member states.
In Brussels, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the EU called on both the Syrian opposition and the regime to reaffirm their commitment to joining peace talks expected to take place in Geneva.
The Strasbourg resolution once more called on President Bashar Assad and his regime to step aside to open the way to a democratic transition, and pledged further humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile, EU aid chief Kristalina Georgieva expressed also on Thursday that the Syrian government forces have committed war crimes by seizing medical aid from convoys bound for rebel-held areas.
"There are cases where medical kits, surgical kits, are removed. What it means is that on the other side, a wounded man, woman or child could die," Georgieva told reporters.
"It is a war crime to remove surgical kits from a convoy, or to prevent help getting in, or, what is even worse, to target medical facilities and bomb them, to shoot at doctors," Georgieva said in Geneva, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were to hold talks later Thursday on efforts to control Syria's chemical weapons.
"Thirty-one humanitarian workers have lost their lives. Turning a blind eye to a violation of international humanitarian law is a war crime too," she added.
She said fewer than half of the eight million Syrians who need aid received it on a regular basis, as the civil war that has claimed more than 100,000 lives and driven two million refugees abroad shows no sign of abating.
Georgieva said she hoped the Kerry-Lavrov talks would enable a broader breakthrough, but insisted a toughly worded U.N. resolution was needed.
"For the first time in this horrible conflict, the international community is coming together in the face of the great danger of the use of chemical weapons," she said.
"But if we don't have a condemnation of violations of international humanitarian law in this conflict, what are we telling bad people elsewhere? That we can turn a blind eye at what you do?"
More than 100,000 people have died and two million fled the country in the more than two-year conflict.
Source: Agence France Presse
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