Syria demands end of all blockade policies as UN adopts resolution on lifting US siege against Cuba

UN General Assembly adopted in session on Tuesday its twenty-third consecutive resolution calling for an end to the United States’ decades-long economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba.
The overwhelming vote passed 188-2, with only the U.S. and Israel voting against it. Three nations abstained, Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
The resolution reiterated the call on the US to lift its siege on Cuba and on other states to refrain from applying such measures, in conformity with their obligations under the UN Charter, and urged those that had applied such laws to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible.
Speeches were delivered on behalf of the international groups during the session titled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”, expressing massive international solidarity with the Cuban people.
The embargo was enacted in 1960 and the sanctions were strengthened to a near-total embargo in 1962.
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari lambasted Israel for voting against the decision, an act, he said, “stresses all over again its disrespect of the international law.”
Al-Jaafari voiced condemnation of the coercive measures the US and EU have imposed on the Syrian people, decrying these unilateral steps as illegitimate as they deprive the Syrians of access to basic living needs such as food, medicine, communication and oil.
Such measures that are imposed on some states, besides being a flagrant violation of the international law and a tool used by the West to exercise hegemony over world states, aim at influencing the sovereignty and independence of those states, he added.
Al-Jaafari reminded of the catastrophic repercussions of the economic sanctions which have been imposed on Iraq and Libya and how badly they affected the civilians in both countries.
He demanded that necessary moves be taken to put an end to the blockade policies and the one-sided coercive measures adopted by some of the UN member states outside the framework of the international law, stressing that these policies amount to acts of aggression.
While calling for lifting all forms of siege imposed on Cuba and many other countries including Syria, al-Jaafari did not lose sight of the Israeli-occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan, demanding that Israel lift its unjust and immoral blockade on the inhabitants in the occupied territories.
He hoped that the “voice” of the international community, expressed by the UN General Assembly and other international bodies, will be respected by the US and its legislative institutions, expressing Syria’s full support to the Cuban government and people.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla briefed the UN session on the repercussions of the US sanctions imposed on his country since 1959, noting that the accumulated economic damages due to the blockade amount to USD 1, 112, 534 trillion.