Nayrouz News Agency : REMARKS BY H. E. AYMAN SAFADI, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND EXPATRIATES
 
AT THE BRUSSELS IV CONFERENCE: "SUPPORTING THE FUTURE OF SYRIA AND THE REGION”
 

June 30th, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

Your Excellencies,

 

Dear Josep [High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr. Josep Borrell],

 

Dear Mark [Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator of the United Nations Mr. Mark Lowcock],

 

Thank you for convening Brussels 4. Our meeting today is yet another tangible and effective demonstration of the commitment of the EU the UN and all of you to keep the plight of Syrian refugees on the international agenda, and to ensure practical measures to support them.

 

The reiteration of this commitment could not have been more timely. Ten years into the Syrian crisis, the needs of refugees have increased. They have also changed in nature. Emergency relief is still vital. But sustainable help to them and to host countries is where focus should be. Needs for schools, medical facilities, jobs, are becoming more pressing. We need to give refugees the tools they need to lead dignified lives. We need to give families tools to provide for their children. We need to give children education to grow into productive men and women. We must give them hope that the world has not, and will not, abandon them.

Dear friends,

 

My country, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is host to over 1.3 million Syrians. Jordanians have embraced them as brothers. For these are the values of Jordanians. We stand by those in need. We welcome them as guests. We have opened our schools, though already stressed, to over 133 thousand Syrian students. Some of our schools are operating at double shifts. We have given over 190 thousand work permits to Syrian refugees, while our unemployment rate was soaring above 19 percent even before Corona. This is more than 4 times the number of jobs our economy can create on annual basis.

 

And since the beginning of the pandemic, and in cooperation with the United Nations the EU and other partners, we have provided our Syrian brethren, of whom only 10 percent live in refugee camps, the same level of protection we give our citizens. Not a single case of Corona was detected in the camps.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear friends,

 

Last year I told this Conference that Jordan gave all it could to refugees because it is the right thing to do. I call upon you once again to support our efforts to continue to do the right thing. We would not have been able to deal with this challenge without your support. It is a must that this support continues. Only 41 thousand refugees have gone back to Syria since October 2018. No refugees are going back since the pandemic has started.

 

Refugees cannot be the responsibility of host countries alone. It is a joint responsibility for all of us. Now more than before, as we face the crippling economic impact of the pandemic, continued international support is key to ensuring that we maintain our support for refugees. Last year, only 50 percent of our response plan was funded. This year the Kingdom rolled out a three-year 6.6 billion dollar Response Plan. I trust we can count on your support. Maintaining our resilience is maintaining our ability to help refugees. And my colleague the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation will soon provide you with the detailed paper on this plan and I do hope it will receive your due consideration.

 

 

Helping refugees my friends is a necessary investment in our collective security. For if we abandon them to need, despair to hopelessness, we render them susceptible to radical ideologies that would try to exploit their hopelessness and their despair.

 

Dear friends,

The ultimate answer to the plight of refugees is their voluntary and safe return to their country. We should reinvigorate and increase our efforts to realize a political solution to the Syrian crisis. This war has gone on for far too long, causing too much suffering too much pain and too much destruction. It has to stop through a political solution that Syrians accept, that preserves the unity and integrity of Syria, that restores to Syria its stability and security and its key role in the region, and that creates conditions conducive for the voluntary return of refugees.

 

We have to remember the crisis is about people. We cannot continue to double down on policies that have not delivered the peace that we all seek. We have to make sure that Syrian people and Syrian security come first. And in this regard, if I may point out to the situation in South Syria, where conditions are really deteriorating, and we need to reconsider stabilization plans that would ensure that people live in peace, live in dignity and have access to their basic humanitarian rights.

 

Syria must live in peace, and the great Syrian people have the right to enjoy normal and safe lives. The absurdity of the continuation of the crisis has been proven at a great cost to Syria, to its neighbors, and to the world at large. We must solve it. And allow me to recognize the efforts of my dear friend, Geir Pedersen [Special Envoy of the UN for Syria], in this regard.

 

Jordan will continue to work with you, friends and partners, for such a solution. And for as long as refugees have to stay in Jordan, we will afford them every care possible. This is a huge challenge. But with your support, we will meet it.

 

Allow me also to thank you for your commitment to UNRWA and the rights of Palestinian refugees. And before I close, I offer the Kingdom’s condolences to all of you over the victims of COVID-19. Our solidarity, as is the case with every common challenge, is key to success in defeating this common enemy.

 

 

Thank you.