UNITED NATIONS - Syria on Wednesday pressed UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council to "react" to last week's Israeli violation of its airspace which it said aimed to torpedo the Middle East peace process.
A day after announcing that he sent letters to Ban and the president of the Security Council to formally complain about the Israeli action, Syria's UN envoy Bashar Jaafari said here: "We cannot dictate to the Security Council the way it should react, but they should react because it is their duty."
"What happens is a violation of the (UN) charter, violation of the sovereignty of a member state of the United Nations and both the secretary general and the Security Council should assume their responsibilities by reacting to such an aggressive act," he told reporters.
The Syrian letters said Israeli warplanes last Thursday crossed Syria's northern frontier and dropped "some munitions without managing to cause any human casualties or material damage... in brazen defiance of international law."
Jaafari said Wednesday that Damascus also wanted to "warn the Israeli government about the consequences of such an irresponsible act and let the Security Council know that if they don't act appropriately it would be a jungle law and there would be no need for the Security Council and member states would be free to react."
He suggested that Israel's goal in carrying out "such an aggressive act is to torpedo the peace process, to torpedo the idea of having an international conference" on the Middle east.
This was an apparent reference to US President George W. Bush's call for a Middle East peace conference, expected to be held in November, in order to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
09/12/2007 17:50 GMT