UNITED NATIONS, March 27. /TASS/. An outbreak of terrorism in the Middle East was triggered by rash actions of external players, Russian Permanent Representative at the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Friday at a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation with Christians and other minorities in the region.

"Conditions for emerging breeding grounds of terrorism, which is hiding behind Islamic slogans but in fact has little to do with this world religion, in the territories of a number of countries of that region have not been created overnight," he said. "Rash actions of off-region players to a larger extent promoted the spread of this malign phenomenon — both before the notorious ‘Arab spring’ and during it."

As an example, he cited the United States’ invasion to Iraq in 2003, a NATO combat operation in Libya in 2011 unleashed in bypassing of Security Council resolution 1973, and developments in Syria. Instead of helping Syrians to settle their domestic crisis, some states "began to stir the pot, pouring money and weapons on opponents of the legitimate president, Bashar Assad, and exerting unprecedented military, political and economic pressure on his government," Churkin said.

"As a result, Al Qaeda’s successors, having augmented their wealth on the Syrian war, declared a caliphate living on violence and genocide in vast territories of Syria, Iraq and Libya, with branches in Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a number of other countries," the Russian diplomat said.

For centuries, the Middle East has been a "crossroad of cultures and civilizations" and "was plunged into an abyss of obscurantism and senseless wanton violence" more than once, he noted. "Today, we again witness an awful drama unfolding in the region."