Residents watch as a US convoy patrols an area near the town of Tal Hamis, southeast of the city of Qameshli in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh governorate, on Jan 26, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)
DAMASCUS – Syria said on Wednesday that the US officials seeking to destabilize Syria must be held accountable, in response to the vow by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to hold the Syrian government accountable for "human rights violations and abuses."
"The American officials who used unlimited funds to destroy Syria and shed the blood of its people must be held accountable," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Without funding, support, and armament from the United States of America and its Western allies, the armed terrorist organizations would not have been able to commit massacres against the Syrians and destroy their infrastructure and civilization," it said.
The statement came in response to a press statement issued by Blinken on Monday, in which he said Washington will continue to support the international efforts "to ensure there are consequences for the ongoing human rights violations and abuses committed in Syria."
The ministry stressed that lasting peace in Syria could not be achieved amid the presence of US forces on Syrian soil.
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The statement came in response to a press statement issued by Blinken on Monday, in which he said Washington will continue to support the international efforts "to ensure there are consequences for the ongoing human rights violations and abuses committed in Syria."
"The US Secretary of State, or the ex-secretaries, couldn't wash their hands stained with Syrians' blood … in addition to the theft of Syrian resources estimated at nearly 30 billion US dollars that the US should pay to the Syrians," the Syrian foreign ministry said.
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Separately, Syria's foreign ministry said the US falsified facts and manipulated events when it sanctioned an alleged member of a notorious Syrian intelligence branch this week, a statement posted on Syrian state media said on Wednesday.
On Monday, the US State Department issued a travel ban against a Syrian security official and his immediate family over his alleged involvement in the 2013 massacre of at least 41 civilians in the Damascus neighborhood of Tadamon, reports Reuters.