France, Germany slam Assad atrocities

France accused Syria and its allies on Wednesday of using the political uncertainty in the US to launch “total war” against rebel-held areas in the country and said states opposed to President Bashar Assad would meet in Paris soon.
 
US President-elect Donald Trump is only inaugurated on Jan. 20 and the outgoing administration is not expected to take an active role in Syria so close to leaving office. European diplomats have expressed concern that Assad may feel emboldened by Trump’s vow to build closer ties with Russia, Syria’s ally.
 
“Today one million people are besieged. Not just in Aleppo, but in Homs, Ghouta and Idlib, and that’s the reality of the situation in Syria,” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.
 
“France is taking an initiative to confront this strategy of total war by the regime and its allies, who are taking advantage of the current uncertainty in the United States.”
 
A meeting of countries opposed to Assad, including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, will take place in the coming days in Paris, Ayrault said. Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said it would happen at the start of December.
 
The UN Special Envoy for Syria also expressed concern that Assad could launch a new offensive to crush eastern Aleppo before Trump takes office. Intense bombardment of east Aleppo, including of hospitals, have left residents even more deprived of medicines, food and fuel in recent weeks.
 
France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, is now actively pushing for a UN Security Council resolution to sanction Syria for the use of chemical weapons, Ayrault said.
 
An inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has already found that government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks and that Daesh militants had used mustard gas.
 
“It’s been proved that the regime and Islamic State have used chemical weapons so we now need sanctions and that’s the resolution we want at the UN The international community must stop turning a blind eye,” Ayrault said.
 
“We aren’t going to sit and do nothing,” he added.
 
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized deliberate attacks on hospitals on Syria, and says it’s “very regrettable” that Russia is supporting Assad’s government.
 
Merkel renewed her criticism of Assad and Russia’s backing of him in a speech on Wednesday to the German Parliament.
She said: “There are too many indications that hospitals and medical facilities are deliberately being bombed and, pardon me, that is internationally forbidden, that has to be pursued under criminal law.”
 
Merkel added: “The Assad regime must know, and it is very regrettable that Russia is supporting this regime.”
She pledged to keep pursuing political solutions, “even if it seems as hopeless as it does at present.”
 
Around 100 families tried to flee rebel-held east Aleppo overnight as the Syrian Army advanced, but were forced to turn back when gunfire erupted, a monitor said on Wednesday.
 
 “On Tuesday night, around 100 families gathered near a passage from the (rebel-held) Bustan Al-Basha district to cross to Sheikh Maqsud,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
 
“But when the civilians tried to cross to the other side, gunfire broke out,” he told AFP without elaborating.
Sheikh Maqsud is a northern neighborhood controlled by Kurdish forces, allied with neither the regime nor the rebels, between the government-held west and rebel-held east.
 
The incident comes as regime forces advance into the east in their latest bid to recapture neighborhoods held by the rebels since 2012.
For more than a week, government forces have pounded them with airstrikes, barrel bombs and artillery fire, killing more than 140 civilians, according to the Observatory.

Source: Arab News