Gulf diplomats call for tackling root causes of Syrian refugee crisis

BRUSSELS, Nov 13 (KUNA) -- Gulf diplomats based in Belgium have called for more international cooperation to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria and also to address the root causes of the refugee crisis.
During a meeting late Thursday with the European Parliament's Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula, third Secretary at the Kuwait Embassy in Brussels Fahad Nawaf Al-Fadhli responded to a question on the role of Gulf states to resolve the issue of Syrian migrants by saying that Kuwait, and other GCC countries, did not spare any effort in helping the Syrian people.
He noted that Kuwait organized three international conferences on the humanitarian aid for Syrians which resulted in a donation of USD 7.7 billion by the donors including USD 1.3 billion by Kuwait.
Al-Fadhli pointed out that the proportion of the Syrian community in Kuwait is close to the 12 percent of the Kuwaiti citizens.
He said that the immigrants' crisis is due to the failure to resolve the Syrian crisis, and stressed the importance of concerted international efforts to resolve the crisis politically, based on the outputs of the Geneva statement.
On his part, Sulaiman Hamid Al-Mazroui, Ambassador of the UAE to the EU, said that his country was at the forefront in helping Syrian refugees financially supporting camps with all the facilities in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
The UAE accommodated one hundred thousand more Syrians through easing of visas and reunification with families, he said.
"The refugee issue will not be resolved by settling them here and there. We feel sorry for all these refugees Arabs and Muslims who fled to Europe. If the world would like to resolve the refugee crisis it should go to the root causes of the crisis in Syria," he stressed.
Najeem Bin Suleiman Al-Abri, Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to the EU, also noted his country's contribution in helping the Syrian refugees and said that Oman donated USD 10 million at the Kuwait international conference for Syrian refugees.
"We believe that there should be cooperation on the international level to solve the Syrian refugee crisis," he said. (end) nk.gta