Damascus slams Netherlands over its support of terror groups in Syria

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
13 Dec 2022 20:39
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The Syrian Foreign Ministry slams the Dutch government over its involvement in assisting terror organizations in Syria under the guise of providing humanitarian aid.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates building

Syria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Tuesday that what was revealed in a report published on December 12 by the UNHR's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic on non-lethal assistance regarding the involvement of the Dutch government in supporting terror groups in Syria, was merely one of the many political, moral, and legal crime committed by the European state.

“This Commission admitted that the support provided by the Dutch government to the so-called 'opposition armed groups in Syria' goes against international law," the statement read.

"Dutch public opinion was manipulated to disguise the fact that the materials provided were used in combat and to conceal their transfer to terrorist organizations,” it further said.

The Ministry added that "the report confirms again the credibility of what Syria has said repeatedly about the involvement of the Western states, including the Netherlands, in providing support to terror groups in Syria under various pretexts."

"Syria calls on the international community to hold those states accountable for their violations of international law, including international humanitarian law along with all violations related to the Security Council's resolutions, and to put an end to using 'combating terrorism' as a pretext by those states to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries,” the Ministry concluded.

In 2018, Hollandic sources reported that the Dutch government has been providing equipment to an armed group in Syria that has been branded a terrorist organization by the public prosecution department, namely the Jabhat Al-Shamiya.

The Dutch government reportedly provided uniforms and pick-up trucks to the group, according to the Dutch affairs program Nieuwsuur.

The materials were sent to the group as part of a covert operation of providing "non-lethal" assistance to 22 terror groups in Syria from 2015 up to the beginning of 2018.

According to the Dutch public prosecutor, the Jabhat Al-Shamiya is "salafist and jihadistic," "strives for the setting up of the caliphate," and can be qualified as nothing else but a "criminal organization of terrorist intent."