WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th January, 2021) The United States will work to re-open closed border crossings used to deliver humanitarian aid to northwest Syria from neighboring countries, President Joe Biden's nominee for United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
"I spent more than half of my career working on Humanitarian Affairs and I will commit to ensuring that we find a way to open up those venues so that humanitarian assistance can get to the mostneedy people in Syria," Thomas-Greenfield told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The UN Security Council has been extending the existing cross-border delivery mechanism every year since its establishment in 2014. Using the initial four border-crossings in Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, the system allowed the United Nations and its partners to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria.
Last January, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that limited the number of border crossings to two from Turkey, following objections from Russia and China to preserve the cross-border mechanism as it was.
Russia had been seeking to limit the number of cross-border aid deliveries to just one checkpoint, and the UN Security Council resolution decided in July to authorize the opening of only one border crossing, Bad al-Hawa, for a year.
Russia views the cross-border aid delivery mechanism as a threat to Syrian sovereignty and believes it was a temporary and urgent measure initiated in 2014. The current situation in Syria, where government forces have regained control over most of the country, no longer requires so many cross border checkpoints.
Syria and Russia have stated that humanitarian aid should now be managed via Damascus.
