Iran, Syria, Switzerland discuss sending aid to Syrian nation
Representatives of Iran, Syria and Switzerland have held their fourth trilateral meeting to discuss suitable and practical means of sending humanitarian aid to the Syrian nation.
Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Middle East and North Africa Reza Ameri, Syrian Assistant Foreign Minister for International Affairs Hussam Eddine Ala and Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Humanitarian Affairs Emmanuel Blur met in Geneva on Monday.
The participants discussed the critical humanitarian situation in Syria, the need for tackling the issue through technical and specialized channels, respect for the Syrian national sovereignty and coordination with the Syrian government and Red Cross in the course of sending humanitarian aid to the Arab country.
Ala, for the Syrian side, pointed to economic sanctions against Syria and the activities of terrorist groups as two key factors in the humanitarian crisis in the country and called for removal of the existing embargoes which have disrupted everyday life in Syria.
The previous rounds of trilateral meetings, held upon Iran’s initiative, were convened twice in Tehran and once in Damascus and led to satisfactory results in facilitating the dispatch of humanitarian aid to Syria.
According to a Thursday report by the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 170,000 people, one-third of them civilians, have been killed in the ongoing foreign-sponsored crisis in the country.
Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. According to reports, the Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are supporting the militants operating inside Syria.
Meanwhile, Takfiri terrorists have recently stepped up their attacks against civilians as Syrian army soldiers have achieved major victories in their battle against the foreign-backed militants.
