Syrian government agrees on delivering UN aid for six months
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Syrian government announced on Thursday the United Nations (UN) could continue delivering aid to the country through the opposition-held border crossing in the northwest for six months after a veto used by Russia against the UN Security Council resolution to extend the cross-border aid delivery two days ago.
The UN aid deliveries would have to be “in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government”, Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, wrote in a letter on Thursday to the UN Security Council, Reuters reported.
The authorization of the mechanism of aid delivery expired on July 10, following the last reauthorization for six months on January 10. The following day, Russia vetoed the UN Security Council (UNSC) compromise resolution that would have extended aid deliveries through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, which connects Turkey and opposition-held northwest Syria, for nine months.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had pushed for a 12-month renewal. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Syrian letter had been received and the United Nations was studying it, Reuters said.
“The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has taken the sovereign decision to grant the United Nations and its specialized agencies permission to use Bab al-Hawa crossing,” Sabbagh wrote.
They would be allowed “to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in need in northwest Syria, in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government, for a period of six months, starting from July 13, 2023,” he said.
In July 2014, the UNSC adopted Resolution 2165 which authorized the UN to deliver cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria through four border crossings al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan, Bab al-Salameh and Bab al-Hawa with Turkey, and al-Ya’rubiyah/Tel Kocher with Iraq, without the consent of the Syrian government.
In January 2020, UN Res. 2504 was adopted which reduced the number of border crossings to only Bab al-Salameh and Bab al-Hawa for six months open to renewal in a special meeting by the UNSC.
Since July 2020, Bab al-Hawa has been the only crossing kept open to UN aid based on Resolution 2533 (2020), while the use of the others was curtailed.
The closure of the al-Ya’rubiyah (Tel Kocher) border crossing is a blatant politicization of the humanitarian situation in northeast Syria, said Badran Chiya Kurd, co-chair of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) on Jan. 6.
Despite successive calls by the AANES and operating organizations in the region for the urgent need to open the crossing, the Russian and Chinese vetoes were always there, keeping the community’s needs in limbo.