Overshadowed by other concerns, the war in Syria got some attention Saturday and leaders from assorted island nations pleaded for their survival as they urged the U.N. General Assembly to take action that would help stop them from sinking into the ocean.
Syria's plight remains one of the world body's thorniest issues as the country has been devastated by more than eight years of war. But global worries over rising tensions in the Gulf region, the earth's warming temperature and the trade war between the United States and China this year have eclipsed attention given to the Syrian people.
The U.N. is hoping that the recent creation of a committee that would draft a new Syrian constitution will put the country on track for a political solution.
But in a speech before world leaders, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem took what appeared to be a hardline stance. He insisted that the committee not be subjected to deadlines and be run entirely by Syria with no preconditions set by other countries a possible indication of the challenges ahead.
"The committee must be independent. Its recommendations must be made independently, without interference from any country or party," al-Moallem said.
The committee will meet for the first time on Oct. 30 in Geneva, the U.N. announced Saturday.
While most of Syria has returned to government control, the opposition-held bastion of Idlib in the northwest, and the U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in the oil-rich northeast, still elude the grasp of President Bashar Assad.
In one of the earliest speeches of the day, the Holy See's envoy, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, highlighted the Syrian conflict along with the one in Yemen as one of the world's most urgent challenges and advised the international community to work together to "put an end to the suffering of so many people."
The civil war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands of people and sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis in the Arab world's most impoverished country. In his own statement before the General Assembly late Saturday, the country's new foreign minister vowed his government would "end any attempt to tear apart our homeland."
"This is an action that is devoid of any practical effect and is aimed at offending Cuba's dignity and the sentiments of our people," Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla thundered. "It is a vote-catching crumb being tossed to the Cuban American extreme right."
Cuba's Parrilla railed against America's economic blockade on Cuba and blamed capitalism for contributing to the world's ecological balance with "its irrational and unsustainable production and consumption patterns."
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