Yesterday Moscow hosted a round table on the topic of social and political support of Syrian people. This event was held in the Russian Diplomatic Academy and was organized on the initiative of the Russian Committee for Solidarity and Cooperation with Peoples of Asia and Africa as well as by the Russian-Syrian Friendship and Cultural Relations Society. Participants in this roundtable adopted a draft declaration in support of Syria, in which they mentioned creation of an independent public solidarity platform for consolidation of efforts of all those who show interest and feel need to contribute to final cessation of destructive processes in the Middle East, initiated by the United States and their allies.
"Our entire country supports Syria and Syrian people. The Diplomatic Academy has been close friend of Syria and its people for a long time. Together we published books, held conferences, wrote theses, published monographs, gave lectures on Syria, trained diplomats. Most importantly, there are people here who dedicated their entire work to Syria for many years. Not only Russia supports Syria, but also many other countries. They support Syrian people, Syrian government in the Arab world, Iran, India and China. Even if their are on the side that officially vigorously opposes Syria and Syrian people," rector of the Diplomatic Academy Yevgeny Bazhanov said.
As an example, he mentioned interview of economist Jeffrey Sachs, who was an economic adviser to Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and now he works on serious projects at the UN. "Sachs is a great figure in American society. He said in his interview: "Stability in Syria ended seven years ago, when the Obama administration together with one Arab state decided to overthrow legitimate government of Syria. They failed, despite all operations carried out by the CIA and some other organizations. For 7 years Americans tried to suppress Syrian people through military means, they bombed Syria, killed Syrians. As a result of such actions 500 thousand people were killed and 10 million became refugees. The Daesh terrorist group appeared in Syria because of America's policy. Russia was forced to begin military operations in Syria with the support of Syrian authorities because of this policy. When Trump became president, instinct told him that it was time to stop this policy, but he was persuaded by newspapers, the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, and by the Congress that it was necessary to continue this absolutely hopeless and catastrophic policy that led to very serious and dangerous confrontation with the Russian Federation." Sachs urged Trump to stop this insane policy, which is primarily aimed at ousting Russia and Iran from Syria. We strongly support this position. So not only our side, but also other side of this conflict has people who understand who's right and who commits crimes."
The Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Ilyas Umakhanov said that thanks to actions of Syrian people, with full support of the Russian Federation and some other countries, Syria was able to achieve major successes in the fight against international terrorism, which resulted in destruction of most of the Daesh forces. "Unfortunately, in this very important historical moment, when we almost reached peaceful settlement, a new threat to independence and territorial integrity of Syria appeared thanks to a number of Western countries. The US and their allies do everything they can to prevent victory of legitimate government led by President Bashar Assad, to cut off a number of territories from jurisdiction of legitimate authorities, primarily in the south and north of the country," Umakhanov said.
According to him, Washington shows contradictory signals regarding its plans, but broad military presence of America in Syrian territory is obvious. "At the same time we can see how another anti-Syrian plan is being set up - placing armed units of some Arab states that haven't given up attempts to interfere in internal affairs of Syria are being deployed instead of or together with American troops. They talk about fight against terrorism, but in reality they cynically support various terrorists. All of this shows that our friends, people of Syria, need political, moral, and humanitarian support, including support of public organizations," Ilyas Umakhanov belives.
