Turkey Calls on the UN to Help Syria - by Frances Garnett

Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey's Foreign Minister, has exhorted the UN to provide humanitarian aid to the regions of Syria that are under siege. He says that hundreds of people have died and there isn't a single resolution from the UN Security Council. He also said, in response to Turkish troops opening fire on a groups of vehicles from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (an armed group in Iraq and Syria, compared to the al-Qaeda, which it pledged allegiance to), that they didn't want to intervene, but a threat came to them. He is especially concerned about preventing the regime of Bashar Assad, President of Syria, of escaping the formation of a transition government, and that it wasn't truthful about how many chemical weapons they still have, even after agreeing to eliminate their supply last year. He stated that the use of chemical weapons is a crime against humanity, the people who committed the crime should be prosecuted, and that world leaders carry this responsibility. Currently, there are two million people in Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq who have fled from the fighting in Syria. Recently, UN peacekeepers have been criticized for being ineffective, having declared safe areas in Bosnia for Muslims and yet doing nothing to secure them, so tons of them were massacred by the Serbs. Also, they were accused of not doing anything while Hutu killed thousands of Tutsi people.

This article made me reflect on something I read in class about the UN's failure to achieve it's original goal, when it was set up in 1945, to save future generations from war, also questioning if it should be reformed or not. This other article also said while it was created to be unbiased, the UN has had so much trouble with decision making between all those countries. Ever since reading these articles, I've always thought that the United Nations was very successful, probably like many others, but now I'm rethinking that. I think that maybe what's needed to solve this problem of decision making is to replace it's current Security Council with a new one (because it is very unlikely that leaders will be able to come up with solutions soon). I sympathize with Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries who have to host refugees, because it's probably a big strain on their infrastructure and costs a lot of money. That's also probably an issue in the UN: there's only a limited amount of money to spend, and there's a surplus of projects and conflicts to use it for. I think that, unless it's reformed and becomes more efficient, the UN should be replaced with another organization, with a different and more "together" structure, so that countries like Turkey don't have to be subjected to difficult situations anymore (for the time being, that is).


Source: http://www.haberturk.com/general/haber/918196-turkey-fm-called-for-humanitarian-aid-to-syria