Iran's Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazaei has warned against the persistence of the Syrian crisis which may lead to the spread of instability into the entire region.
Khazaei made the remark during a UN General Assembly meeting on Syria on Thursday.
He said that the Syrian conflict could engulf the whole region and result in further instability, calling for an immediate end to foreign supplying of arms and money to opposition groups.
The envoy cited armed groups’ non-compliance with the six-point peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, the joint UN and Arab League envoy, as one of the main challenges facing the proposed solution.
He also criticized certain foreign countries for trying to undermine the political solution, provoke armed confrontation and change the Syrian government.
Referring to the recent terrorist attacks in Syria, the Iranian envoy blamed certain key regional players along with armed groups for making every effort to bring Annan’s peace plan to deadlock.
Khazaei called for concerted efforts to reinforce the political process as the only solution to the Syrian crisis and urged all parties involved to stick to the UN-backed plan.
Annan has proposed a six-point plan to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the resolution of the turmoil in Syria.
The plan, effective from mid-April, calls for the establishment of a cease-fire between the government and the opposition, allowing humanitarian groups to access the population, releasing detainees and starting a political dialogue.
Syria has been the scene of unrest since mid-March 2011 with demonstrations being held both against and in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government.
The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing protesters, but Damascus blames ''outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups'' for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.
AR/AZ
