U.S. Embassy in Damascus mocks Syrian FM’s U.N. speech

The U.S. Embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus has mocked Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem’s recent U.S. speech, posting on its Facebook page a photo showing the address being delivered to a near-empty auditorium, with the caption “Empty Chairs for Empty Words.”

The social media post, which was published on Wednesday, has since been shared over 300 times and has garnered 128 comments.

In Muallem’s speech made at the U.N. General Assembly late last month, the veteran Assad-regime diplomat slammed Washington’s “dual policy” of launching air strikes on some militants in Syria while providing assistance to others.

“This is a real recipe for the increase of violence and terrorism, shedding of Syrian blood, [and] prolonging of the Syrian crisis,” Muallem said.

“This behavior creates a fertile ground for the growth of these terrorist groups that commit the most heinous crimes on Syrian territory,” he added.

Muallem was not the only top-level envoy to speak to a largely empty auditorium at the General Assembly’s 69th session – some reports suggested that the hall was equally deserted during speeches by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Australia’s Tony Abbott, and Canada’s Stephen Harper.

In its efforts to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants, the United States, which leads a coalition of over 40 nations against the group, initially launched strikes in Iraq in August and widened its action in late September to include Syria, where ISIS is based.

So far, the coalition has attracted dozens of countries, though only a handful of Arab allies - Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - are participating in the strikes on Syria.