GCC states urge urgent UN action to save Aleppo

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has demanded on Saturday that the UN intervene in Syria to stop aerial bombardments of the city of Aleppo that it said were killing hundreds of civilians.
The GCC said a Syrian government offensive on the city was systematically destroying neighborhoods and a “flagrant aggression contrary to international laws.”
“The secretary-general demands that the UN Security Council intervene immediately to stop the aggression on the city of Aleppo and end the suffering of the Syrian people,” the GCC said in a statement.
It called on the UN to “implement relevant council resolutions over the Syria crisis.”
The devastating war in Syria has ravaged Aleppo, once the country’s economic hub.
The UN’s top aid official decried the “living hell” suffered by residents in Aleppo’s east.
UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien called for immediate action to end the “living hell” of civilians in Aleppo’s east.
For 10 days a Russian-backed Syrian government offensive has been underway to capture eastern Aleppo and crush the last urban stronghold of a revolt against Syrian President Bashar Assad that began in 2011.
The collapse of the latest Syria cease-fire has heightened the possibility that Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar might arm Syrian rebels with shoulder-fired missiles to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, US officials said.
France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday he was working to put forward a UN Security Council resolution for a cease-fire in Aleppo, and that any country that opposed it would be deemed complicit in war crimes.
The US continues to maintain that negotiations are the only way to end the carnage.

Source: Arab News