2024-01-23T16:13:16+00:00
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/ Syria considered that the strikes launched by the Jordanian Air Force on areas in the south of the country recently were “unjustified,” stressing that it was “trying to contain them in order not to affect” the relationship between the two countries.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that these strikes claimed the lives of a number of civilians, including children and women, and a number of wounded.
The ministry added, in a statement carried by the official news agency SANA, that “these strikes were justified as being directed at elements involved in drug smuggling across the border into Jordan.”
She pointed out that “the political, media and military escalation that we have witnessed in the past few months is not at all consistent with what was agreed upon between the joint committees from both sides regarding sincere cooperation to combat all violations, including criminal gangs for drug smuggling and trafficking.”
The statement referred to the letters sent by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense and the security services to their counterparts in the sisterly Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in which they proposed taking practical steps to control the borders. They also expressed Syria’s readiness to cooperate with Jordanian civil and security institutions, but those messages were ignored, and we did not receive them. In response, no response was received from the Jordanian side.”
In the statement, Syria affirmed its continued “combat of terrorism, confronting all manifestations, practices and crimes related to smuggling and illicit drug trafficking, and working to end them wherever they are found.” However, it states that since 2011 it has suffered from the influx of tens of thousands of terrorists and the passage of huge quantities of weapons, from Neighboring countries, including Jordan.
She explained that she “insisted not to resort to reactions that affect the interests of the peoples of the two brotherly countries in Syria and Jordan, and her understanding in this regard was that this matter requires cooperation between the two sides.”
She stated that she was surprised, despite the relevant meetings between the two countries that were held previously, by “repeated strikes targeting its territory by the Jordanian Air Force, causing innocent victims without any justification.”
For weeks, the Jordanian army has been intensifying its campaign against drug smugglers, after clashes last month with dozens of people suspected of having links to groups allied with Iran and transporting large quantities of drugs across the border with Syria, as well as weapons and explosives.
Local Syrian media and observers following the crisis said that possible Jordanian air strikes on southern Syria resulted in the deaths of ten people, including children, early last Thursday.
There has been no comment yet from the Jordanian authorities.