Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has welcomed that 100 Irish troops that were deployed in the Golan Heights on a UN peacekeeping mission have returned home safely<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to take this opportunity to welcome home the 100 Irish soldiers who have spent 7 months in the Golan Heights on a UN peacekeeping mission, in very dangerous and extremely challenging conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a relief to everyone that they have returned safely to their families and loved ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation in the Golan Heights has become extremely dangerous as it is a key region in Syria\u2019s brutal civil war, and because Israel has bombed Syria on many recent occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation for UN peacekeepers in the region has got particularly tense after a Spanish UN peacekeeper was killed by Israeli artillery fire in south Lebanon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in opposed the sending of Irish troops on this particular mission as we feel it is not fit for purpose due to the escalating civil war in Syria and that the neutrality of Irish troops might be questioned after the EU lifted its blockade on sending weapons to groups involved in the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cUN peacekeepers in the region have been kidnapped, targeted and injured recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also made plainly clear that once the deployment began that our main concern was the safety and welfare of these soldiers. Thankfully all these troops have returned safely, and we hope the remaining soldiers will also return home safely in the near future.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has welcomed that 100 Irish troops that were deployed in the Golan Heights on a UN peacekeeping mission have returned home safely Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cI would like to take this opportunity to welcome home the 100 Irish soldiers who have spent 7 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,167,169,48,41,109,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defence","category-defence-forces","category-golan-heights","category-israel","category-syria","category-un","category-un-peacekeeping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2134,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2133\/revisions\/2134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}