WHAT IS happening in Syria is an affront to humanity, the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, told the United Nations General Assembly in New York yesterday.
“Syrian children, Syrian women and Syrian men, young and old, are being slaughtered by their own government,” Mr Gilmore said.
“A national army – the army of a sovereign state – a member of this organisation, shelling their own people as they queue for bread, and launching airstrikes on their own cities.”
The people of Syria deserved the full support of the international community in their efforts to bring about an end to this suffering and to achieve an early political transition, Mr Gilmore said.
Ireland backed the joint special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, in his difficult task. “The priority must be to achieve an immediate ceasefire and to get a political process under way that will facilitate the transition.”
What was needed above all, Mr Gilmore said, was “a strong Security Council resolution which will authorise targeted sanctions. This must include a comprehensive arms embargo” . “That is what the Syrian people want from us, and what they have a right to expect.”
Carla del Ponte, the International Criminal Court’s former chief prosecutor, was yesterday appointed a member of a United Nations commission investigating war crimes in Syria, it was announced in Geneva.