European terrorism, a new phenomenon of our times – chief Syrian diplomat Ja'afari

Jihadists are coming to Syria with the consent and support of the intelligence services of European states, Syria’s ambassador to the UN and chief negotiator at the Geneva peace talks, Dr. Bashar Ja'afari, told Euronews.

Europe facilitates the passage of terrorists with EU citizenship to Syria and Iraq, the Syrian diplomat insists, stressing that “governments are responsible for every terrorist who comes from Europe.”

“Today we have a new phenomenon called European terrorism. They claimed before that there was Arab and Islamic terrorism. Today we are victims of European terrorism, emanating from Brussels, Paris, London, Spain, Germany, Italy…” Ja'afari told Euronews.

Syrian Ambassador to the U.N. Bashar Ja'afari © Eduardo Munoz © Reuters

“It’s hard to believe that a terrorist who leaves Paris, London, Brussels, or Boston, or Australia and arrives in Syria without a visa, without a passport, through dozens of states and the Turkish-Syrian or Jordanian-Syrian border, has done so without intelligence services overseeing these operations,” Ja'afari said.

Ja'afari also pointed out that when threatening to withdraw citizenship from terrorists returning to Europe, the European governments simply “encourage the terrorists to stay in Syria and not to return to Europe.”

“If these states really wanted to stop the terrorists striking Syria and Iraq, they would have forbidden the flow of these terrorists from their countries,” in the first place, Ja'afari told Euronews.

When asked about an “intervention” from Russia, Hezbollah and Iran, Ja'afari made it plain once and for all, saying: “Any force, state or authority, which helps us fight terrorism in a clear way and with the coordination of the Syrian army and the Syrian government, is welcome.”

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Ja'afari appraised the role of Saudi Arabia in the Syrian peace process as highly negative, since “they seek to destroy the Syrian state” instead of seeking a solution to the Syrian crisis and threaten to freeze peace negotiations in Geneva.

“Like children, we have to sweeten them up so they will work and keep to the political process,” Ja'afari said.

Ja'afari dubbed a part of the Syrian opposition renouncing parliamentary elections held last week as “illegal.”

Speaking about the recent Israeli government meeting in the occupied Syria’s Golan Heights territories, Bashar Ja'afari recalled the unanimously passed United Nations resolution 497, which dates from 1981, “categorically prohibiting” the annexation of the Golan and its occupation.

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“The resolution was voted for by the US, France and Britain, Israel’s major allies, which supported the idea that this annexation is invalid, null and with no legal basis,” Ja’afari said.