The World Council of Churches has renewed its calls for all parties to the Syrian conflict to cease hostilities and “commit to peaceful negotiations toward a transitional governance within the framework of international law” in the wake of the US bombing of a Syrian airfield, saying there is no military solution to the crisis.
US President Donald Trump ordered the launching of more than 50 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian Government airfield early Friday morning. The airbase is understood to be the location from where a deadly chemical attack on a community in Idlib province was launched earlier this week in which more than 80 people, including numerous children, died.
Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, said in a statement released after the US bombing that “there is no military solution to the situation in Syria” and that the only path for peace lies in “nonviolent action and peaceful dialogue among the parties to the conflict”.
“Two wrongs – the bombing of civilians with chemical weapons and retaliation with further bombing – do not make a right. They do not advance the interests of the Syrian people, who have already suffered so much; nor do they pave the way for a future of peace.”
Rev Dr Tveit, who earlier this week called on the UN Security Council to put an end to the “culture of impunity” in the conflict, said that in light of the US response “and the risk of this already disastrous conflict escalating and spreading regionally and internationally”, he called urgently on the UN Security Council “to fulfil its unique collective responsibility for promoting peace and security for all.”
He also called on Christians and “all people of faith” around the world to join in prayer for peace and an end to conflict and bloodshed in Syria.
Meanwhile, Rev Dr Tveit denounced a suspected terror attack in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday in which four people died and some 15 others injured when a hijacked truck was driven into a crowd in a busy shopping street before crashing into a department store. A man was arrested later that day in connection with the attack.
“Once again, people going about their daily lives, in celebration of holidays, have suffered a violent attack,” he said. “We must join together, not just to condemn these actions but to strengthen our pursuit of just peace, and to strengthen our resolve not to allow extremist violence to separate us from each other.”
