The call from Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, follows the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution on a 30-day ceasefire, agreed unanimously on Saturday after fierce negotiations.
Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Mogherini was asked whether the international community’s demands for a ceasefire also extend to Turkey’s military operation in the Kurdish canton of Afrin, northwestern Syria.
“We have already expressed our concern about this. In general terms, I am extremely concerned, the [EU foreign] ministers as well, about the increase of military operations all over Syria, from different actors – obviously first and foremost by the regime and its supporters,” she said.
“There is a special responsibility, especially from the three guarantors of the Astana process, Russia, Iran and Turkey, to make sure the process of de-escalation takes place and not the process of escalation.”
The UN Security Council unanimously passed the resolution, drafted by Kuwait and Sweden, after it gained the support of Russia, the Syrian government’s main military and diplomatic sponsor. Russia had previously used its veto to block the resolution to allow Damascus to continue operations against ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked rebels.
Russia only gave its consent once these groups were excluded from the ceasefire agreement, and the timeframe for implementation was given more flexibility.
The main focus of the resolution was halting Syrian government operations in Idlib and in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, where conditions under the regime bombardment have been described by the UN general secretary as “hell on earth.”
It was not immediately clear, however, whether the resolution also applied to Afrin, where Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20. Ankara believes the ruling Kurdish groups in northern Syria are “terrorists” and has sought to push back the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from the border. The civilian death toll meanwhile has been mounting.
During the UN session on Saturday, the Syrian representative to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, urged the Security Council to apply the humanitarian ceasefire deal to the whole of Syria – including Afrin.
“The ceasefire must include the whole of Syria including Afrin,” Jaafari told the chamber.
Asked by Rudaw’s Majeed Gly whether the resolution would include Afrin, the Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said it includes the whole Syria.
However, speaking to reporters on Sunday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag insisted the resolution would not apply to its Afrin operation.
On Monday, Mogherini hailed the resolution, but cautioned it was only a “first step” and must be implemented immediately.
“That is a necessary and encouraging step – but a first step,” the Italian diplomat said.
“Now that resolution needs to be immediately implemented to have monitoring mechanisms and we will continue to work in these weeks and these days together with the United Nations, with all our international and regional partners, to make sure that the situation on the ground improves immediately.”
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council, which opened its main four-week annual session in Geneva on Monday, UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres repeated his call for the resolution’s immediate implementation.
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