From The Tablet: Syriac Catholic Patriarch hits out at West

 

14 May 2013

The Syriac Catholic Patriarch said the ongoing violence in Syria was the result of Western nations carrying out a geopolitical strategy "to split Syria and other countries" in the Middle East.

Syriac Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan told Catholic News Service: "It's not a question of promoting democracy or pluralism as the West wants us to understand of its policies. This is a lie, this is hypocrisy."

The Beirut-based Patriarch said Western nations encouraged conflict in the Middle East "in the name of the so-called awakening of people, of democracy," adding that "so-called Western democracy" cannot be exported to countries that still look at religion as a base for ruling their regimes or political life.

He said that in Syria, as in Iraq after the US-led invasion, many Christians have fled their homeland. "Christians in the Middle East have been not only abandoned, but we have been lied to and betrayed by Western nations, like the United States and the European Union," he said.