The UN Security Council fails to agree on the renewal of aid delivery mechanism to Syria
The UN Security Council failed to agree on the renewal of aid delivery mechanism to Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, in its first session on Thursday evening.
Two draft resolutions were submitted in the session yesterday, one of them presented by Russia that called on extending the mandate for 6 months, and the other one presented by Norway and Ireland to extend the mandate for 12 months.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in yesterday ‘session called for the members of international security council to extend the authorization of humanitarian aid transfers to Syria across Bab al-Hawa on the Turkish border for an additional 12 months.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a press conference “last year we had 800 trucks of cross-border aid go through each month, reaching about 2.4 million people.”
He made it clear that “the greater our ability to plan long-term, the better it is, both in terms of just operations, in terms of costs, and so on”.
In a Security Council session held at the end of last June, the UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, called for extending the authorization for humanitarian aid transfer through Bab al-Hawa crossing for a whole year. He also warned against the consequences of the increased humanitarian needs of civilians who are in dire need of this assistance, considering that the extension of authorization is a moral obligation.
Earlier, the Associated Press reported that Russia has agreed on extending the humanitarian aid delivery from Turkey to northwestern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing for only 6 months.
