Clinton Urges U.N. Security Council Unity on Syria

Secretary Clinton says the United States rejects any equivalence between the Syrian government's actions and those of civilians who have been driven to self-defense.

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on members of the U.N. Security Council, including Russia and China, to join the international community in saying with one voice that the killing of innocent Syrians by their government must stop and a political transition from Bashar al-Assad’s regime must begin.

Speaking at the Security Council in New York March 12, Clinton said that although the United States firmly believes that each U.N. member state should enjoy sovereignty and territorial integrity, “we do not believe that sovereignty demands that this council stand silent when governments massacre their own people, threatening regional peace and security in the process.”

In addition, the Obama administration rejects “any equivalence between premeditated murders by a government’s military machine and the actions of civilians under siege driven to self-defense,” she said.

The secretary said it was “cynical” that the Syrian military was carrying out assaults against civilians March 11 at the same time Assad was meeting with the Arab League’s peace envoy, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

“We believe that now is the time for all nations, even those who have previously blocked our efforts, to stand behind the humanitarian and political approach spelled out by the Arab League. The international community should say with one voice, without hesitation or caveat, that the killings of innocent Syrians must stop and a political transition must begin,” Clinton said.

Speaking at a media stakeout in New York March 12, Clinton said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had met with the Arab League and had agreed that it is necessary to end the violence and allow unimpeded humanitarian access to the Syrian people. He had also agreed to Annan’s leadership of a political process to resolve the conflict based on the Arab League’s peace plan and U.N. General Assembly resolutions, Clinton said.

In her meeting with Lavrov earlier in the day, “I pointed out my very strong view that the alternative to our unity on these points will be bloody internal conflict with dangerous consequences for the whole region,” she said.

“Now, Foreign Minister Lavrov will take what he heard here back to Moscow, and we are all waiting to hear from former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as to his advice about the best way forward,” she said.

The United States wants to give Annan “the space and time to develop his recommendations,” Clinton said, and if he “comes back with a slightly different formulation that we think will work, we're going to be very respectful of that.”

In her remarks before the Security Council, Clinton said the political protests in Syria and elsewhere that have swept the Middle East and North Africa have “sprung from a common desire for rights, freedom, economic hope and human dignity,” and the peoples of the region “deserve and demand our collective support.”

The Obama administration is approaching the developments in the region “with a healthy dose of humility,” she said, “because we know that these revolutions are not ours. They are not by us, for us, or against us.”

But at the same time, the international community has “the resources and capabilities to support those who seek peaceful, meaningful, democratic change,” and it must have the will to do so, she told the Security Council.