Jumblat Urges Steps to Change Syria 'Grim Situation' after 'Chemical Bombardment Barbarism'

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Thursday said “all the conventional statements of condemnation and denunciation” are not enough regarding “the horrible scenes of the Ghouta massacre in Damascus' countryside that were broadcast by TV stations.”

“Meetings held here and there will remain futile without taking the necessary measures to change the grim situation that the regime has dragged Syria into with a cover from international and regional allies and amid the neglect of the West, which settled for drawing fictional red lines that have nothing to do with reality on the ground,” Jumblat said in a statement.

“One has the right to question the meaning of basic principles … that are being crushed everyday in Syria, such as human rights, international law, treaties, norms and agreements,” Jumblat added.

The PSP leader said “all the ethical and humanitarian values have vanished over the human remains of children, women and the elderly,” accusing the “democratic regimes” of “standing idly by concerning the barbarism of fierce chemical bombardment.”

Jumblat wondered about “the fate and future of Syria, which the regime has turned into a huge camp, in which it practices detention, killing and crime without accountability,” asking “how does this camp differ from the Nazi concentration camps in which mass murder was practiced in cold blood?”

Jumblat also compared the reported carnage to the “grand massacres committed by Israel in Deir Yassine, Qana, Gaza and other locations.”

He called for seeking ways to “salvage the Syrian people, at least on the humanitarian level, instead of leaving them to face their fate on their own.”

The Syrian opposition has said more than 1,300 people were killed in bomb attacks with a chemical agent carried out by regime forces in the Ghouta area, an accusation vehemently denied by Damascus.