From the press release issued Oct 3, 2016
REF: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2016-10-03/remarks-opening-executive-committee-united-nations-high-commissioner
Quote from speech: "In Syria, the Geneva Conventions concluded in this city to bring some semblance of morality to the dirty business of war have been flouted over and over.
If you consider all the refugees, displaced people, and those in besieged or hard to reach areas, there are thirteen and a half million Syrians who desperately need help. Six million of them are children.
I have met these refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece. I also met the Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini, who was on the refugee team at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Yusra fled Syria in an overcrowded boat that started to sink. She risked her life by jumping into the Aegean Sea to help push the boat to shore.
When I think of Yusra’s courage on the one hand, and the inaction of powerful leaders on the other, I am outraged by the bitter injustice of war.
The situation in Syria is one of the most dramatic and tragic in the world. And we must also remember the millions of other refugees from Yemen, Afghanistan, Burundi, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and beyond."
Related stories from the UN News Center:
‘Bunker-buster’ bombs in eastern Aleppo mean children not even safe underground, UN experts warn
3 October 2016 – The killing and maiming of children in eastern Aleppo by the Syrian Government and its allies is not only a brutal abdication of international human rights obligations, it will have a long-lasting impact on the young victims for generations to come, United Nations child rights experts warned today.
In Geneva, Ban reiterates call to end Syrian conflict; reflects on tenure as UN chief
3 October 2016 – Speaking at a press conference in the United Nations Office in Geneva today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon once again called for the political will to end the Syrian conflict, while also sharing his reflections on the nearly 10 years he spent as the top UN official.
Intra-Syrian Talks
Since March 2011, Syria has been in the throes of a conflict that has killed over 260,000 people and forced more than half of all Syrians to leave their homes. An estimated four million Syrians have sought refuge in neighbouring countries alone, including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. The crisis, described as the worst humanitarian disaster of our time, has caused untold suffering for Syrian men, women and children.
From the US MISSION to the UN:
Remarks before UN Security Council Consultations on Syria---Ambassador Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
From the press release issued 9.29.16
REF: http://usun.state.gov/remarks/7462
QUESTION: Anything about the French proposal for a Security Council resolution on the ceasefire in Aleppo?
AMBASSADOR POWER:" I haven’t seen any resolution, so I can’t comment on that. What I can comment on is the most savage week we’ve seen in an incredibly savage, five-plus-year war. What Assad and Russia are doing in Aleppo is soul-shattering. Seventeen-hundred strikes – 1,700 – in just a portion of a city. Let’s not forget we’re talking about eastern Aleppo. More than a thousand people killed, and those are just the ones we know about. Hundreds of people buried in rubble who can’t be rescued because the White Helmets have been deliberately targeted. White Helmet headquarters targeted in two different parts of town in close succession – two opposite parts of town. And an attempt to starve and bomb people in eastern Aleppo in a way, again, that is grotesque.
You saw yesterday how the Syrian ambassador feels about the death, the slaughter, of the Syrian people in Aleppo – he laughed. The Syrian regime negotiator in Geneva laughed. That’s the coldness and the brutality that we’re talking about, and Russia stands right alongside those individuals and those bombers and, again, is not backing the regime – is fighting alongside the regime, bombing alongside the regime, exceeding in brutality what we have seen from the regime in the life of this war." ---read full statement.
From the US State Dept: Suspension of Participation in Bilateral Channels With Russia Established to Sustain the Cessation of Hostilities in Syria.
REF: Press release issued 10.3.16
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/10/262704.htm
The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the Cessation of Hostilities. This is not a decision that was taken lightly. The United States spared no effort in negotiating and attempting to implement an arrangement with Russia aimed at reducing violence, providing unhindered humanitarian access, and degrading terrorist organizations operating in Syria, including Daesh and al Qaeda in Syria.
Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments - including its obligations under international humanitarian law and UNSCR 2254 - and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed. Rather, Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the Cessation of Hostilities, as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas, targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need, including through the September 19 attack on a humanitarian aid convoy.
The U.S. will also withdraw personnel that had been dispatched in anticipation of the possible establishment of the Joint Implementation Center. To ensure the safety of our respective military personnel and enable the fight against Daesh, the United States will continue to utilize the channel of communications established with Russia to de-conflict counterterrorism operations in Syria.
US DEFENSE DEPT: U.S. Strike in Syria Targets Key al-Qaida Leader
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