{"id":24900,"date":"2014-09-05T23:57:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-05T15:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=24900"},"modified":"2014-09-06T00:11:50","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T16:11:50","slug":"un-calls-on-countries-with-influence-to-press-for-release-of-45-abducted-un-peacekeepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/05\/un-calls-on-countries-with-influence-to-press-for-release-of-45-abducted-un-peacekeepers\/","title":{"rendered":"UN calls on \u2018countries with influence\u2019 to press for release of 45 abducted UN peacekeepers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herv\u00e9 Ladsous (center and in a dark suit), is received with full military honors on his arrival in Goma, eastern D.R. Congo. Photo from MONUSCO \/ Sylvain Liechti<\/a> \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.N. Security Council called Wednesday on \u201ccountries with influence\u201d to press al-Qaida-linked insurgents to release 45 U.N. peacekeepers from Fiji abducted last week in the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n

A press statement approved by all 15 council members after a briefing by U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous again demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the Fijian peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Heavy clashes have raged in the Golan Heights since Syrian rebels captured a border crossing between Syria and Israel near the abandoned town of Quneitra last Wednesday. Fighters from al-Qaida\u2019s Syria branch, the Nusra Front, abducted the Fijian peacekeepers and surrounded two\u00a0Filipino\u00a0contingents serving in the U.N. force known as UNDOF the following day.<\/p>\n

The Security Council welcomed the news that all the Filipinos were safe and commended the U.N. peacekeeping mission\u2019s quick reaction force for its assistance.<\/p>\n

Ladsous told reporters the peacekeepers have shown \u201csteadfastness and courage\u201d and said the U.N. is working to obtain the swift and unconditional release of the Fijians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are sparing no effort to obtain the release of the detained peacekeepers,\u201d he said, but gave no details stressing the importance of \u201cdiscretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fiji commander\u2019s Brig. Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga said Tuesday that the Nusra Front has made three demands for the release of the peacekeepers: It wants to be taken off the U.N. terrorist list, wants humanitarian aid delivered to parts of the Syrian capital Damascus, and wants compensation for three of its fighters it says were killed in a shootout with U.N. officers.<\/p>\n

The Nusra Front accused the U.N. of doing nothing to help the Syrian people since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. It said the Fijians were seized in retaliation for the U.N.\u2019s ignoring \u201cthe daily shedding of the Muslims\u2019 blood in Syria\u201d and even colluding with Assad\u2019s army \u201cto facilitate its movement to strike the vulnerable Muslims\u201d through a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n

UNDOF was established in May 1974 following intensified firing on the Israel-Syria border after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, and Syria has campaigned for decades for return of the land. For nearly four decades, the U.N. monitors helped enforce a stable truce between Israel and Syria but the Golan Heights has increasingly become a battlefield in the more than three-year-old Syrian conflict.<\/p>\n

The mission currently has troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the\u00a0Philippines.\u00a0A number of countries have withdrawn their peacekeepers due to the escalating violence.<\/p>\n

Fiji\u2019s commander says the nation won\u2019t abandon its mission in Syria, and he is even willing to replace the 45 troops if they need to recuperate if and when they are released.<\/p>\n

Ladsous said UNDOF has been strengthened with armoured equipment and other military hardware.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very important that the mandate of UNDOF which has contributed to stability should continue,\u201d Ladsous said.<\/p>\n

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power also said Wednesday that UNDOF\u2019s \u201coriginal purpose is still critically important\u201d and that the spillover from Syria\u2019s conflict \u201conly underscores how important it is for us to continue to have observers there monitoring disengagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Power, the current Security Council president, said \u201cthere is no question that the circumstances that UNDOF finds itself in are vastly different than anything UNDOF had experienced before.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the Security Council has not heard from the U.N. secretariat or the commanders on the ground that the mission\u2019s mandate needs to be revised. But she said that among council members, there is \u201cgreat openness to being responsive to the requests from headquarters or from the field … to make sure that the mission is appropriately tailored to the circumstances on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its statement, the council commended the peacekeepers for their bravery in facing the threats and challenges in the volatile area and reiterated its \u201cunconditional support for UNDOF and the vital role it plays in support of the stability in the Golan Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council demanded that all groups abandon areas controlled by UNDOF and the Queneitra crossing, and return all vehicles, weapons and equipment belonging to the peacekeepers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.N. Security Council called Wednesday on \u201ccountries with influence\u201d to press al-Qaida-linked insurgents to release 45 U.N. peacekeepers from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":24901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-w","mauthors-edith-m-lederer","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}