Hawzah News Agency – Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Dr. Fayssal Mikdad, affirmed Syria’s condemnation of the insistence of the United States and its allies to fabricate the crisis in Ukraine to threaten Russia’s national security and escalate tensions with Moscow in order to revive NATO role and expand its scope.

“This would threaten stability, risks unleashing an arms race and increasing the potential for large-scale war, including nuclear war,” Mikdad added in a video speech to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

According to him “Confronting the current international dangers requires reconsideration of the rule of international law and the UN Charter, and the implementation of bilateral and multilateral commitments in the field of nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control away from double standards and political manipulation.”

He noted that activating the role of the Conference on Disarmament is of particular importance as it is the only multilateral international negotiating forum concerned with disarmament, especially in the field of nuclear disarmament, which is the purpose of the Conference’s existence.

Mikdad expressed Syria’s conviction that the conference’s ability to move towards a way out of the state of stagnation depends to a large extent on being guided by the rules of procedure of the Conference on Disarmament and the principles of equality in sovereignty.

He also expressed Syria’s hope that the launch of the current session would constitute a serious step towards agreeing on a comprehensive and balanced work program that would enable the conference to resume its substantive work and restore its negotiating mandate.

Mikdad noted that for more than 11 years Syria has been subjected to an unprecedented war of terrorism, financed, armed and directed by known states and regional and international parties to undermine the Syrian State, and its stability, unity and territorial integrity and threaten the lives of its citizens in flagrant violation of international law, the UN Charter and the relevant Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism.

Mikdad added that, as Daesh ISIS ( Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist entities associated with al-Qaeda) continue to threaten security and stability in a number of states in the region and beyond, there is a risk that these terrorist organizations will acquire, develop, store and use weapons of mass destruction.

He affirmed Syria’s support for starting negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament on a draft convention to prevent chemical and biological terrorism on the basis of the text proposed by Russia.

The Foreign and Expatriates Minister indicated that in parallel with the dangers of terrorism, the Israeli occupation entity continues to destabilize the region and threaten international peace and security.

Mikdad stressed that these Israeli attacks will not remain without retaliation, and that Israel’s practice of state terrorism and acts of aggression and its occupation of Arab lands in Palestine and the Golan would not have continued without international connivance and American protection from accountability for its continued violations of the rules of international law and the UN Charter and its disregard for Security Council resolutions.

He added that the occupation entity continues modernizing and expanding its arsenal of conventional and non-conventional weapons and the acquisition and development of weapons of mass destruction programs and nuclear military capabilities away from international control.

Mikdad said that while Syria and regional countries have been actively participating in the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction, which held its second session at UN Headquarters in New York last November, the abstention of Israel and the United States to attend the Conference under the United Nations banner is a clear disregard for the international and regional will to establish.

“As we look forward to convening the 10th Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on its new date, Syria hopes that the next conference will provide a serious opportunity for consensus and to move forward in implementing the commitments set forth in the treaty, the final documents and resolutions of the NPT review conferences, in particular with regard to the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East,” Mikdad said.

He added that Syria affirms that the implementation of the Middle East resolution that was adopted as part of the deal of the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 will remain valid until its implementation.

Mikdad expressed Syria’s welcome to the progress made towards reaching an agreement in the Vienna talks on returning to the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement with Iran.