In the Name of God, the Almighty

Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and Heads of Missions,

Distinguished Guests,

Esteemed Audience,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I welcome all of you, dear guests, to the third international conference on fighting against terrorism in Romania. During the past year we witnessed brutal terrorist attacks in all continents of the world including America, Europe, Asia and Africa. But, beside that, significant positions and victories have occurred in Iraq and Syria in the interventions against terrorist attacks – and we hereby congratulate the Iraqi government and people for retaking the city of Mosul – and, according to some evaluations, Daesh’s existence in Iraq is coming to an end, and it is taking its last breath in Syria as well. After brilliant victories over the terrorists in Iraq and Syria, we are now witnessing serious attempts to retake Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in Syria. Therefore it seems that if there is determination and a comprehensive effort against terrorists, the disintegration of these dangerous and inhumane groups is not so difficult. The problem occurs only when some of the world powers want to exploit the inhumane actions of these terrorist groups, in order to reach their illegitimate interests and to advance their dirty politics in the region.

The sinister legacy of colonialism in the Middle East and the influence of the West’s colonial aggression in the countries of the region have caused harmful negative effects. The story of the colonial movements in the Middle East, meaning Palestine and its suburbs, was precisely the point that has become the center of a big conspiracy, and the usurper Zionist state has been created like a cancer in the heart of the Muslim world. From the Muslims’ point of view, the creating of the usurper state in the Holy Land of Palestine is considered the actual display of the hostile feelings of Britain, France, and the USA toward the Muslim world.

Never in the course of history has one of the world’s nations faced such suffering, endeavor, and oppression so that one country was fully occupied and its people were forced from their homes, and in their place, a group of strangers from different parts of the world has been sent and settled there. The actual existence of a country has been ignored, and a fake entity has taken its place. The colonialism and the global arrogance have prevented the progress of the countries in the region by imposing a lengthy conflict and creating permanent instability in this region, by looting and plundering their wealth, and by transforming the heritage of the regional civilization identity. Since 1948 until now, many generations in this area have lived in homelessness and war; generations that are still displaced in different parts around the world, and the heritage that they have received is nothing but suffering, dislocation, torture, and martyrdom.

Provocative actions have been taken after the land usurpation of the oppressed Palestinian nation and in continuation of the targeted efforts to change the historic and civilization identity of this land. Gradually, these actions have brought destructive effects for the international peace and security. Muslims have seen in resistance their only way against the occupation, assault, robbery, and murder, and they have always tried to make the world aware of this blatant oppression.

In the recent crisis in the Middle East, coordination between Israel’s Zionist regime and terrorists in Syria is obvious to everyone and injured terrorists are being treated in Zionist hospitals. The head of the military intelligence department of this regime has stated that “the failure of Daesh in Syria is not in Israel’s interest. Israel does not want the war in Syria to end in a way that Daesh might fail and the big countries might leave the region. We should try to prevent this from happening.”

But in return to all the crimes of this abominable regime and its recent positions regarding the Middle East developments and crises, the Zionist regime’s isolation in the past years’ events, such as the UN General Assembly Resolutions and even most recently the resolutions of the UN Security Council and UNESCO, is showing that, in addition to the Palestinians’ legitimate resistance in the occupied territories, a new arena for advancing the struggle has been opened in the world of politics and culture. Nowadays the issue of Palestine is expressed by the social media so that the message of oppression and injustice may be heard by the entire world; now, the people of the world, to the extent of the geographical area of social media, in which the peace-loving people are taking their part, have risen up to defend the Palestinians and their resistance.

The phenomena of extremism and violence are multifaceted, multilevel, and multifactorial, and some of their root causes are consisting of poverty, injustice, marginalization, discrimination, oppression, violation of fundamental human rights, colonialism, foreign domination and occupation.

The emergence of the takfiri groups, the intensification of their terrorist acts around the world, especially the Middle East and North Africa, the creation of war and division among Muslims on behalf of common enemies, are the result of the deceits of governments that trespass their boundaries.

At the same time, the international community is witnessing an intensified and reinforced rise of anti-Islam behavior and anti-Muslim actions in the West; the attacks on Muslims and Islamic centers, as well as the creation of social limitations for Muslims, are some of its effects. The resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly on the dialogue of civilizations and the world against violence and extremism are welcomed since the adoption of such resolutions, while allowing more communication, emphasize on increasing the convergent orientations, reducing areas of conflict and dispute, and ultimately preventing violence, extremism, and terrorism.

Nowadays the big problem and the disaster which is causing great suffering in the Middle East region is the spreading of terrorism in the region. When we carefully analyze and study the origins of this formation, we can see that the main cause for the occurrence of such a crisis is the misuse of terrorism by some international powers to advance their goals and promote their policies in the Middle East and subsequently around the world. Without any sense of responsibility for the future of humanity and the health and safety of human societies, they easily exploit these very dangerous and inhumane means to achieve their sinister goals. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, explicitly states in her memoirs that the US has created the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Daesh! Or somewhere else she’s saying that “because of the security of Israel, we must smash Syria. And Mr. Trump, the US President, in a speech delivered after winning the country’s presidential election, has stated: “I believe the shortcomings of the Barack Obama administration have led to the emergence of the Daesh terrorist group”. So we see that even when al-Qaeda’s presence in Syria has become plain and obvious, without any protest, they have increased the financial and logistics support to terrorists in Syria. They have directly ventured into this matter and they have also encouraged their regional allies to provide unsparing assistance to terrorists. They have closed their eyes on young Europeans joining the terrorists and perhaps they have indirectly facilitated their travel to the region until suddenly they have woken up to the sound of the explosions in Europe and they have finally understood that the fire they had overheated in the region has now reached their own lap. By adopting the strategy of a political solution instead of overthrowing the legitimate government of Syria, they have changed the direction towards the fight against terrorism in the Middle East. At this stage, with Russia’s practical -not verbal- entry into the fight with the terrorists in Syria, fortunately on one hand the terrorism in the region was prevented from gaining more power, and on the other hand, with the participation of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Türkiye and the opponents of the Syrian government to the Astana peace talks, effective steps were actually taken in order to reduce tension and increase hopes for peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the same powers of evil are continuing to strengthen the terrorists, seeking their illegitimate interests and trying to achieve their sinister goals in the Middle East, and therefore the movement towards peace, tranquility and permanent stability proceeds with so much difficulty, while the world has witnessed the harmful catastrophes of Syria in which about 300 thousand people have been killed and 11 million have been displaced. We witness the US forces attacks on the positions of the Syrian army and also the overthrow of a Syrian warplane, which in fact is considered an effective aid to the terrorists.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The effective fight and complete eradication of Daesh and other terrorist and takfiri groups, requires a collective and sustained support from the international community.

The terrorism factories from all around the world must be shut down. Their factory in Syria is not yet shut down, and they have opened another factory in Yemen. Do you think all these innocents in Yemen who are bombarded or killed, or that are losing their lives because of the widespread spring outbreak of cholera and lack of access to health facilities, will have no psychological effect on their survivors? Don’t you think that a new generation will be pushed towards terrorism? In fact, isn’t there another new factory to produce terrorism opened? When we look at the Saudis’ supporters and at the arms dealers to that country for the continuation of their crimes in Yemen, we find that they are one and the same with the main supporters of terrorism in Syria, who do not think in any way to stop this kind of ugly and dangerous method in order to achieve their illegitimate interests and advance their destructive policies in the region.

We consider that any attempt to classify terrorists as “good terrorists” and “bad terrorists” is counterproductive and illegal, and we reject it.

The only way to end the violence and crisis in Syria and to achieve national reconciliation is the political solution, which can be reached through dialogue and negotiation among all Syrian sides.

I wish all of you success, and I hope that by helping one another and by benefitting from the ideas of our esteemed guests from other countries participating at the conference, we will be able to offer useful and effective solutions to continue the fight against terrorism.

Thank you.

Note: This paper was presented during the International Conference “Evolutions in Fighting Terrorism and the New Challenges of the Middle East”, held in Bucharest on the 5^th of July 2017.