President Obama blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government for the “horrific violations of international law” taking place in Aleppo, and said Russia obstructed the United Nations while backing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
“We have seen a deliberate strategy of surrounding, besieging and starving innocent civilians,” Obama said during his final year-end press conference from the White House. “Responsibility for this brutality lies in one place alone: the Assad regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, and this blood and these atrocities are on their hands.”
Assad, with the support of Iranian militias and the Russian air force, is in the closing stages of clearing out rebel opposition in Aleppo — once Syria’s largest city and a major stronghold in the northern part of the country. Putin’s team has defended its policy as a necessary defense of Assad from terrorists such as the Islamic State, but the Obama administration has long faulted them for attacking moderate U.S.-backed rebels rather than prioritizing jihadists.
“The Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies are trying to obfuscate the truth,” Obama said. “The world should not be fooled and the world will not forget.”
The Syrian crisis has turned into an embarrassment for the Obama administration and the United Nations, however, as western denunciations of the attacks on civilians in Aleppo have failed to produce any concrete means of fulfilling the “responsibility to protect” doctrine adopted in the U.N. in 2005.
“Unfortunately, member states have shown some stepping back from their firm agreement on responsibility to protect,” outgoing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Friday morning.
Russia has vetoed resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the United Nations Security Council, leaving the international body deadlocked.
“Regretfully, but unsurprisingly, Russia has repeatedly blocked the Security Council from taking action on these issues so we’re going to keep pressing the Security Council to help improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to those who are in such desperate need and to ensure accountability, including continuing to monitor any potential use of chemical weapons in Syria,” Obama said. “And we’re going to work in the General Assembly as well, both on accountability and to advance a political settlement, because it should be clear that although you may achieve tactical victories, over the long term, the Assad regime cannot slaughter its way to legitimacy.”
