Dubai: UAE Foreign Minister Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Sunday held the international community responsible for inaction on Syria
“It cannot remain numb to atrocities in Syria, even at the humanitarian level,” Shaikh Abdullah told a news conference with his Australian counterpart, Bob Carr.
Shaikh Abdullah urged the international community to show a common, serious stance against the Syrian regime, which became tyrant to its people.
The visiting Australian minister condemned the Syrian situation as the “most horrific humanitarian situation on earth”.
Citing the huge number of deaths and the third of the Syrian people who turned refugees as a result of the Syrian crisis, Carr said Australia wanted to see a ceasefire and a peaceful transition towards a democratic regime.
The United Nations said on May 15 the death toll in Syria from the two-year-old civil war is at least 80,000, an increase of about 10,000 from February 2013.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said the number of Syrian refugees including those awaiting registration is more than 1.5 million people, and more than four million people were internally displaced.
Carr pressed for a pact so that medical convoys to Syria were not stopped or attacked and that no parties involved would attack hospitals and doctors.
The two sides signed an MoU establishing a UAE-Australia ministerial committee to boost cooperation between the two nations.
Shaikh Abdullah said Australia had managed over the last 20 years to become one of the UAE’s largest economic partners.
“There are thousands of Emiratis who study at or are graduated from Australian universities and tens of thousands of Emirati tourists visit Australia every year,” Shaikh Abdullah said.
On a visa-free status for Emiratis, Shaikh Abdullah said that status took years to realise. “We discussed this visa-free status with the Schengen countries for many years, but today we’ve a chance to make the visa process with Australia much more viable for students” he said.
Carr said he was proud to announce that student visa processing would take only 14 days once all formalities were complete.
He said Australia’s trade and investment in the UAE was $6 billion (Dh22 billion) and 300 Australian businesses were operating in the country.
UAE and Australia have signed a pact to work together on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, laying the groundwork for potential shipments of uranium to the Gulf nation.
The agreement provides a framework for cooperation and will ease the “commercial exchange of nuclear materials and equipment”.
Australia is a major producer of uranium. The agreement stopped short of setting specific terms for imports.
