I am surprised to see Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s diplomatic wickedness. On Thursday night, he announced that the regime of Bashar Assad had halted attacks to allow trapped civilians in Aleppo to be evacuated, but in reality they wanted the opposition fighters to rise to the bait and get killed or arrested.
Assad’s murderous soldiers pressed an offensive on Friday with ground and air attacks in a bid to retake all of the city’s besieged east.
Lavrov, to our consternation, has denied saying earlier the regime military would halt its activity.
Lebanese Druz leader Walid Jumblatt has rightly pointed out that the fall of Aleppo would further embolden Iran and its client militia Hizbollah in Lebanon to carry out their disruptive activities in the region and destabilize the Arab world.
Surprisingly, there is no call from the Arab League to hold an emergency meeting to pressure the international community, especially the European Union, to rein in Assad and his godfather Moscow.
Diplomatic lethargy on the part of the outgoing US President Barack Obama and his team is quite worrisome. He doesn’t want to or doesn’t have the will to take any major military or diplomatic step against Russians to save Aleppo from extermination.
There is no whimper of protest in Arab capitals. It seems we all are eagerly waiting to see Aleppo breathe its last.
A deafening silence from the rest of the world over the willful genocide of innocent Syrian men, women and children will not be pardoned by history.
— Sunita Dharmadhikari, Dammam
Dishonest diplomacy
