UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday signaled an end to a long-running United Nations humanitarian operation in Turkey delivering aid to 4 million people in rebel-held northwestern Syria after it vetoed a nine-month authorization renewal at the UN. Security Council.
Russia then botched its own offer of a six-month extension of the operation, which has been delivering aid including food, medicine and shelter since 2014. Security Council approval for the aid deliveries expired on Monday.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, suggested that the council’s mandate for the relief operation could not be saved.
After vetoing and before the council vote on Russia’s six-month proposal, Nebenzia said: “If our draft does not receive support, then we can go ahead and close the cross-border mechanism.”
“The technical transfer, for any period of time, we are not going to accept it,” he added.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the US will continue to work with all council members to renew the aid operation and urged Russia to reconsider its position.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had pushed for a 12-month renewal.
Guterres was disappointed that the council had not reached an agreement and urged members to “redouble their efforts to support the continued delivery of cross-border assistance to millions of people in dire need in northwestern Syria for the longest possible period.” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. saying.
Authorization is needed because the Syrian government in Damascus, which has close ties to Moscow, did not agree to the UN operation on sovereignty grounds. Security Council votes on the issue have long been contentious: In both 2022 and 2020, the mandate expired, only to be renewed a day later.
The Security Council initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 to opposition-held areas of Syria from Iraq, Jordan and two points in Turkey. But Russia and China have reduced it to a single Turkish border point.
support groups denounced the impasse in the Security Council.
‘TOTAL CRUELTY’
Russia and Syria have argued that the aid operation violates Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They say more aid must be delivered from inside the country, raising opposition fears that food and other aid will fall under government control.
After an earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad allowed the United Nations to use two additional border crossings from Turkey to send aid. That approval expires on August 13.
The Syrian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would now include the Bab al Hawa crossing in its agreement with the United Nations and extend those approvals beyond August 13.
“That is for them (Syria) to decide,” Nebenzia told reporters. “It’s in your hands.”
Syria’s ambassador to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, told Reuters that Damascus would assess the situation and announce its position.
Sabbagh told the council that the authorization for the aid operation should only be extended for six months and criticized the text drafted by Switzerland and Brazil, saying it “did not reflect the aspirations of the Syrians.”
China abstained in the vote for the nine-month recommitment of the aid operation authorization drafted by Switzerland and Brazil, while the remaining 13 members of the Security Council voted in favour.
Only Russia and China voted in favor of Russia’s proposal for a six-month extension. Ten members of the Security Council abstained, and the United States, Great Britain, and France voted against.
A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes from Russia, China, the United States, France or Britain to be adopted by the Security Council.
“This is a sad moment for the Syrian people,” US Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield told the council after Russia’s veto. “What we have just witnessed, what the world has just witnessed, was an act of utter cruelty.”
A violent crackdown by Assad on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to a civil war, with Moscow backing Assad and Washington backing the opposition. Millions of people have fled Syria with millions more internally displaced. The fighting has subsided with Assad back in control of most of Syria.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; edited by Rami Ayyub and Mark Heinrich
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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