The closing of the cross-border mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid to Syria will not affect the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the crisis-torn country, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday, expressing the belief that the aid to Syria is "extremely politicized."
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th July, 2020) The closing of the cross-border mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid to Syria will not affect the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the crisis-torn country, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia said on Thursday, expressing the belief that the aid to Syria is "extremely politicized."
A diplomatic source told Sputnik earlier in the day that the UN Security Council did not support a Russian-drafted resolution that would have authorized the delivery of humanitarian aid into northwest Syria through one checkpoint in Turkey for half a year. According to the draft, obtained by Sputnik, the cross-border mechanism would have been sustained "until 10 January 2021, excluding the border crossing of Al-Ramtha, Al Yarubiyah and Bab Al-Salam."
"This is a temporary mechanism, it was enshrined in the resolution under which it was created, and our partners are aware of it. Some provisions of this resolution were not respected during all this time. We have always said that time will come when we will have to close the cross-border mechanism and start providing assistance in a normal regime, via the Syrian territory. Early this year, we extended the mechanism for six more months, preserving two checkpoints in Idlib that are not fully controlled by the Syrian government. At that point, we closed one checkpoint in the north-east [of Syria], as it was not used for a long time ... Claims immediately emerged that it is literally the only possibility to provide assistance to people in need in the north-east and that it is necessary to deliver cargo ... Humanitarian assistance is extremely politicized ... Humanitarian assistance to people in need in Idlib will continue anyway, we now propose just closing one checkpoint as a st
ep toward the final aim, that of closing the cross-border mechanism because it does not respect the principles of humanitarian aid delivery. The closing of the mechanism will not affect either the volume or the character of the assistance," Nebenzia explained.
