News / Russia

Ankara supporting anti-Damascus terrorists: Syria UN envoy

Wednesday, 30 December 2015 2:37 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 30 December 2015 2:38 PM ]

Bashar Ja'afari, the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations ©AP

The Syrian ambassador to the UN has accused Turkey of aiding terrorist groups operating against the Damascus government.

In a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday, Bashar Ja'afari also called on the UN to take action to bring an end to the Ankara government's crimes against Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

Ja'afari said armed terrorist groups, with members from over 100 countries, are being provided with funding, weapons, logistical and materiel support “by states and regimes from the region and beyond” in their war against Syria.

“During the crisis, Turkish interference in Syria's internal affairs took many forms, including direct involvement of the regime of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, the Turkish armed forces in offensive military operations in support of terrorists,” he noted.

The diplomat said the Turkish forces “have also provided covering fire for the terrorists' movements inside Syrian territory or along the Syrian-Turkish border, in order to facilitate the infiltration of terrorist mercenaries from Turkish territory into Syrian territory.”

He urged the UN “to take a firm stand” to “put an end to these violations and crimes” committed by Ankara against Syria as well as Syrian refugees in Turkey, accusing Erdogan of dreaming "of reviving the Ottoman colonial legacy."

Elsewhere in his comments, Ja'afari described Ankara’s recent downing of a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian soil as "a stab in the back of the heroes who are combating the terrorism” perpetrated by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

A combination of frame grabs shows a warplane crashing in flames in a mountainous area in northern Syria after it was shot down by Turkish fighter jets near the Turkish-Syrian border, November 24, 2015. ©Reuters

On November 24, Turkey downed a Russian Su-24M Fencer aircraft, claiming that the fighter jet had repeatedly violated the Turkish airspace.

Moscow, however, dismissed Ankara’s claims, stressing that the plane was brought down in Syria's airspace, where Russia has been conducting operations against Takfiri terrorists since September 30 upon a request by the Damascus government.

In his letter, Ja'afari also denounced Turkey’s allegations regarding the incident as a futile attempt to cover up the involvement of the Erdogan administration in the smuggling of Syrian oil by Daesh into Turkey and the smuggling of arms to terrorists in Syria.

Earlier this month, Russia released photos showing columns of tanker trucks purportedly loading oil at Daesh-controlled installations in Syria and Iraq before entering neighboring Turkey.

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