Saudi Arabia has urged the United Nations Security Council to take tough action against the Syrian regime because it has failed to meet its international obligations to end the killing of its citizens. This appeal was made by Ambassador Abdullah Al-Mua'lemi, the Kingdom's Permanent Representative at the United Nations, in a speech at the UN Monday night. Al-Mua'lemi said the Security Council should not “allow the Syrian regime to procrastinate and evade its obligations as it has done with Arab initiatives”. This was taking place at the “expense of Syrian lives”. Al-Mua'lemi said that the Syrian regime was still killing its people despite Security Council resolutions 2042 and 2043 on the deployment of a mission of international observers to monitor developments and implement initiatives of the UN and Arab League Joint Envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan. Syria has been using heavy weapons to bomb residential neighborhoods and villages, and has detained scores of people, he said. Nearly 60 people were killed Monday in violence across Syria, the majority of them civilians from government shelling and gunfire in the central city of Hama, a monitoring group said Tuesday. “Thirty-one civilians were killed by gunfire from government forces in the neighborhood of Arbaeen in the city of Hama,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Meanwhile, Al-Mua'lemi said the Kingdom wanted to express its “deep concern over Israel's continuing assault on East Al-Quds and its attempts to destroy, burn and undermine the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque”. He said the Israeli occupiers were still using “abhorrent methods of displacement and expulsion of Palestinians, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment of prisoners and were continuing settlement building and expansion”. Al-Mua'lemi noted that the Arab states have unanimously adopted the initiative of Saudi Arabia to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, ensure the withdrawal of Israel from the Syrian Arab Golan Heights and the occupied Lebanese territories, and establish a Palestinian state. He said this plan has received widespread international support but has been rejected by the Israelis. He appealed to the Security Council to take action to break the siege on Gaza and to recognize an independent Palestinian state within the June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds as its capital. With regard to the Iranian occupation of the three islands of Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Al-Mua'lemi said this was threatening behavior by the Iranians against Arab Gulf countries.
