As he stressed that Damascus was ready to cooperate with efforts to help the Syrian people, Syria’s representative to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, stressed that such efforts should be honest and not politicized.

During a UN Security Council session on Wednesday, Jaafari said: “It’s time to stop lies and fabrications regarding the war imposed on Syria.”

“We are ready to cooperate with honest efforts to help the Syrian people,” Jaafari told the 15-member Security Council, stressing that such efforts should not be dictated by “rejected foreign agendas.”

The Syrian government had continued to cooperate with the different United Nations agencies based on the governing principles of humanitarian work but also the fundamental principle of respecting one nation’s sovereignty, Jaafari said.

Noting that the United States had said it had allocated $160 million to spend on Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, the Syrian representative wondered: “Would it not have been better to use that money to return them to their homes and to rebuild schools in Syria?”

Humanitarian efforts must not be based on politicization. Syrian pain must not be used as a commodity, he stressed.