Russia offers six-month proposal for cross-border aid to Syria
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – Russia proposed on Wednesday amendments to a draft resolution by Ireland and Norway, reducing their year-long time frame for cross-border aid mechanism to Syria to six month.
The UN Security Council scheduled to veto on Thursday morning to reauthorize the UN Resolution No.2585 to continue delivering aid across border.
If no compromise appeared, the draft resolution by Ireland and Norway to extend cross-border deliveries for 12 months would be voted on first, according to AP.
In 2014, the UN Security Council allowed aid deliveries into Syria through four border-crossings; Ramtha border crossing with Jordan, Tel Kocher (al-Ya’rubiyah) border crossing with Iraq, and Bab al-Salama and Bab al-Hawa border crossings with Turkey that are not under the control of Syrian government.
However, under pressure by Russia and China, the Security Council reduced them to one border crossing in early 2020, which is the Bab al-Hawa border-crossing with Turkey, leaving other Syrian areas to suffer.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), where hundreds of thousands IDPs are scattered, repeatedly calls on the international community and the United Nations, since the activation of the UN Resolution 2585 (2021), to open al-Ya’rubiyah crossing with Iraq, and to separate the humanitarian situation from the political interests of some countries.
Al-Ya’rubiyah crossing, which is located on the Syria-Iraq border and is the only crossing through which UN aid may enter the AANES-held areas in Syria’s northeast, has been closed due to successive Russian-Chinese vetoes since 2020.
The closure of the crossing deprived residents of Syria’s northeast of aid estimated at $26.8 million, due to the cessation of support for many organizations operating in the region, the head of the Organizations’ Affairs Office in the Jazira Region, Khaled Ibrahim, told North Press previously.
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated ISIS militarily.
The AP, in its report, said that Russia has agreed to continue humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to rebel-held northwest Syria for six months — not a year, as many UN Security Council members, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and more than 30 nongovernmental groups want.
However, in the proposal al-Ya’rubiyah border crossing was not mentioned.
Prior to the six-month proposal, Russia had called for delivering the UN aid to the opposition-held areas through the Syrian government-held areas rather than through border crossings with Turkey.
“Russia does not see any justification for extending the mechanism for the delivery of humanitarian aid across the [Turkish] border to Syria after its term expires next July,” in April Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia said.
Geir Pedersen, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, via video teleconference, on Wednesday said it was absolutely essential that the Council renew resolution 2585 (2021) in order to bring life-saving, and life-sustaining, humanitarian assistance to Syrians for an additional twelve months.