Ambassador Dorothy Xia
Chargé D 'Affaires Ad Inim
New York, New York
February 12, 2025
It was also delivered
Thank you, President, and thank you, GEIR PEDERSEN and Assistant Secretary -General Joyce Msuya, for your briefing. We appreciate your explicit evaluation of the political and humanitarian situation in Syria and your continuous participation in Damascus.
During the recent associations of Foreign Minister Marco Rubio with regional leaders, he highlighted a comprehensive transfer in Syria.
The United States believes that members of the Council must continue to urge a wide representation of the Syrian voices in the future of Syria.
Minister Rubio also stressed the need to prevent Syria from becoming a safe haven for terrorism. We want Syria to deprive foreign malicious actors the opportunity to exploit Syria's transition to achieve their goals.
For many years, the Assad regime allowed Iran and terrorist agents, including Hezbollah, to use Syrian territory to threaten regional security and dangerous traffic weapons.
Now, we are concerned about reports of newly formed groups in Syria inciting violence, including by seeking to attract Israel to a direct conflict. According to these groups, these groups receive financial and logistical support from Iran, even after Iran left Syria.
The signs of warning about Iran's evil influence and its intention to re -establish its presence in Syria are clear. For these reasons, we must call Iran collectively to stop undermining the stability and security of Syria.
The continuous armed hostilities in northern Syria are also related to, and the United States will continue to follow up the ceasefire that would enable our local partners to focus on fighting ISIS and maintaining the security of detention facilities and camps for the displaced.
Since the regional defeat of ISIS, American assistance has played a vital role in managing and securing the displaced camps in northeastern Syria, and decisively, the Syrian Democratic Forces Administration facilities that are holding thousands of ISIS fighters, but this assistance cannot be forever.
The United States has endured a lot of this burden for a long time. In the end, the camps cannot remain a direct American financial responsibility.
Accordingly, we continue to urge the two countries to return their country quickly and the detained citizens who remain in the region.
We encourage Carla Quintana's visit to Syria, the first visit by the head of the independent institution for missing persons in Syria.
We encourage close cooperation with IIMP, including the opening of the IIMP office in Damascus, which will help the families of the missing persons to obtain the answers they deserve for a long time, including for Americans and citizens of partner countries.
To achieve this purpose, we also continue to encourage cooperation with international, neutral, independent accounting groups, IIIM and Syrian accountability.
We also noticed that the United Nations obtained approval to resume delivery operations from humanitarian assistance through the Bab Al -Hawa crossing and we will continue to encourage continuous access.
We remain in close contact with our allies and partners and stress the importance of reaching stability in Syria to make our country and the region safer.
I thank you.
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