Press Statement

Khalid Saleh

Syrian Coalition Media Office President

Istanbul, Turkey

February 11, 2014

In light of the Assad regime’s continued dropping of barrel bombs on residential areas, as well as its attempts to disrupt efforts aimed at delivering aid into besieged areas, we call on the United Nation’s Security Council to pass the draft resolution on the situation in Syria with measures ensuring the immediate stoppage of violence and access of aid to all those in need in Syria.

The Assad regime’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Miqdad, admitted yesterday to his government’s use of barrel bombs -which have a massive and indiscriminate impact- against what he called “terrorists,” a blanket term the Assad regime uses to describe everyone who opposes its despotic rule.

The regime has also been bombarding the village of Zarah, rural Homs, for the past week, forcing its residents out as part of its campaign to change the demographics of the city of Homs.

Yesterday, at the start of the second round of negotiations in Geneva, the Syrian Coalition’s delegation submitted a paper to the UN documenting the Assad regime’s human rights violations across Syria. We should not forget that since the start of the negotiations in Geneva, the Assad regime dropped more than 130 barrel bombs on residential areas and killed more than 1,805 civilians.

Blocking the resolution on Syria at the UNSC will cost the Syrian people more blood. Russia has a moral duty not to disrupt the resolution, as the failure to pass it will mean Russia is determined to continue to back Assad in killing the Syrian people and to cover-up the dictator’s war on the people calling for freedom and democracy.

We ask for Mercy for our martyrs, health for our wounded, and freedom for our detainees.

Long live Syria and its people, free and with honor.