NATO Parliamentary Assembly criticizes UNSC for failure to resolve Syria crisis

BRUSSELS, Nov 24 (KUNA) -- The NATO Parliamentary Assembly wrapped up its 60th Annual Session in the Hague on Monday, adopting eight resolutions on international security issues, criticizing UN Security Council for failing to solve the Syrian crisis.
On the Middle East, the Assembly condemned the "extensive and persistent human rights violations by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, and the gross, systematic and widespread abuse of human rights by so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and by other parties to the conflicts in Syria and in Iraq." It expressed deeply concern that "the increasingly sectarian extremist ideological nature of the conflict is spreading outside Syria and Iraq into the region and beyond, inciting dangerous numbers of foreign fighters to join these conflicts, and thereby raising the prospect of the conflict zones becoming a wellspring for global terrorism." The Assembly deplored" the failure of the UN Security Council, and more broadly the international community, to take more urgent action in Syria, which has only fuelled the current state of violence, destruction, and suffering." It welcomed the intervention of the US-led international coalition which has stalled ISIL's operational tempo and enabled Iraqi and Kurdish forces to regain their footing, but said itrecognized that the air strikes and other measures undertaken so far have only gradually affected ISIL's overall capabilities or its operations in Iraq and Syria.
It underlined the pivotal role of regional actors in reaching a negotiated settlement to the civil war in Syria and in defeating ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
The Assembly called on regional stakeholders, with the international community's assistance, to cooperate in good faith to end the ongoing violence in Syria and Iraq and to achieve long-term, sustainable regional stability. (end) nk.bs