Italy renewed its pledge to support the consolidation of the Syrian opposition to the Assad regime, as well as to \u201cseek to alleviate the serious humanitarian crisis\u201d and gave its consent to the \u201cconcrete solidarity\u201d initiative with Turkey involving the deployment of Patriot missiles for the \u201cexclusive defence\u201d of the southeastern borders of NATO. \u201cWe are extremely concerned over the Syrian crisis and consider entirely unacceptable the suffering inflicted on the civilian population. We are committed to supporting the consolidation of the Syrian opposition\u201d, was Premier Mario Monti\u2019s statement at the end of a meeting with Lebanese Premier Najib Mikati today in Rome. <\/P>
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Risk of a humanitarian catastrophe<\/STRONG><\/P> \u201cWe must get there before this becomes a humanitarian catastrophe\u201d, said Minister Giulio Terzi, announcing that Italy had decided to send \u20ac1.5 million in immediate aid for the Syrian refugee border camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan where, \u201cthere are now 300,000 refugees\u201d and where \u201cchildren are dying of the cold, as the head of the Syrian opposition has told me\u201d. Terzi pointed out that \u201ca few hours from now\u201d a plane would leave from the Brindisi depot. \u201c\u201dAs far as Italy is concerned\u201d, Terzi added, \u201cthe humanitarian emergency that has been created by the very serious Syrian conflict, has been a top priority from the start. We have tried to move the international community and have been among those insisting the most in UN and EU refugee aid programmes\u201d. The minister then reported that, from what came out at the dinner for the foreign ministers at the NATO headquarters, other European countries \u201care making massive moves\u201d to send humanitarian aid, pointing out that German minister Westerwelle was preparing \u20ac70 million in aid allotments and that Italy would earmark \u20ac20 million \u201cas of the start of next year\u201d.<\/P> NATO\u2019s \u201cConcrete solidarity\u201d with Turkey<\/STRONG><\/P> Minister Giulio Terzi, who participated in a two-day NATO ministerial meeting that put the central focus on the Syrian situation, explained that the deployment of Patriot missiles in Turkey under NATO command would serve \u201cexclusively\u201d as a demonstration of concrete solidarity with Turkey, a NATO member, and \u201chas nothing to do with the establishment of a no-fly zone or is in any way to be construed as preparation for military action against the Syrian regime\u201d.<\/P> \u201cUnacceptable<\/STRONG>\u201d<\/STRONG>the use of chemical weapons<\/STRONG><\/P> The end of the Bashar al Assad regime \u201cseems near\u201d, Terzi said. And if Damascus were to decide to use chemical weapons, either out of desperation or as a means for spreading the conflict beyond its borders, Terzi stressed that it would be \u201cabsolutely unacceptable\u201d, while according to his French colleague Laurent Fabius, the reaction would be \u201csevere\u201d. In the same vein, Britain\u2019s William Hague spoke of the possible \u201cserious consequences\u201d, and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: \u201cWe know that they have warheads\u201d, and that they have \u201cchemical weapons\u201d. The possible use of nerve gas is a red line not crossable even for Russia. Minister Sergei Lavrov, after the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Brussels, warned that \u201cthe use of weapons of mass destruction would have serious implications\u201d, adding that Russia \u201cwould not accept any violation of international treaties\u201d if Syria were to use them.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy renewed its pledge to support the consolidation of the Syrian opposition to the Assad regime, as well as to \u201cseek to alleviate the serious humanitarian crisis\u201d and gave its consent to the \u201cconcrete solidarity\u201d initiative with Turkey involving the deployment of Patriot missiles for the \u201cexclusive defence\u201d of the southeastern borders of NATO. \u201cWe […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6,76,39],"class_list":["post-18322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-approfondimenti","tag-mediterraneo-e-medio-oriente","tag-ministri-precedenti","tag-nato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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