I will make three points.<\/p>\n
First, the current conflict in the region is having a profound impact on neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s reckless attacks threaten to escalate the conflict and further disrupt supply chains and economic security.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve heard, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is also exacerbating humanitarian vulnerability and displacing tens of thousands into Syria, many of them women and children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This adds to an already difficult humanitarian situation and places further strain on fragile services.<\/p>\n
My Foreign Secretary has underlined the UK\u2019s grave concern at the developing conflict and called for de-escalation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK has announced $20 million in emergency humanitarian support across the region, half of which will support organisations in Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Syria, we have released an additional $650,000 to support those impacted by the crisis, including vulnerable women and girls.<\/p>\n
Second, Mr President, the UK welcomes continued progress on implementing the agreement between the Syrian Government and the Syrian Democratic Forces.<\/p>\n
I want to pay tribute to the work of the US and you personally, Mr President, in brokering this agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ongoing security co-operation, initial appointments of SDF officials to Government posts, and the return of Kurdish families to areas of Afrin are vital steps that build confidence and pave the way towards a stable and unified Syria.<\/p>\n
Elections in Raqqa Governorate are a further positive sign and an important step towards developing a representative and inclusive Syrian political system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We hope to see further momentum maintained and resolution of outstanding issues, including prisoner exchanges and military integration.<\/p>\n
And third, I welcome the efforts of Deputy Special Envoy Cardone to renew and strengthen the UN\u2019s relationship with the Government of Syria.<\/p>\n
The Envoy\u2019s Office plays an important role in coordinating the UN\u2019s support to Syria\u2019s recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We hope to see its relocation to Damascus in the near future to better enable UN support on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We encourage the UN and the Syrian Government to work constructively towards this goal.<\/p>\n
Colleagues, 15 years since the initial uprising against Assad and 15 months since his ousting, we continue to see genuine and historic progress in Syria.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We must do all we can to maintain momentum towards a more stable and secure future for the Syrian people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I will make three points. First, the current conflict in the region is having a profound impact on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-482531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}