“I wish to express my firmest condemnation of the religious and ethnic-related violence systematically and viciously perpetrated by the Daesh against local Syrian populations”. Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Paolo Gentiloni commented thus on the news of the kidnapping and murder of dozens of Christian civilians in Syrian orthodox villages in the northeast province of Hasake.
“These systematic violations of fundamental rights and the massacre of communities that have existed peacefully for a thousand years is a source of deep outrage and entirely unacceptable”, the minister added.
“Protecting the cultural and religious patrimony of a multi-ethnic Middle East is in the interests of the international community. The forces for countering violent extremism must be multiplied, and any ideological position based on intolerance and hatred must be rejected”, Gentiloni concluded.
