Six month cross-border aid renewal for Syria: Russian proposal at UN

UNITED NATIONS: As the U.N. Security Council prepares to vote on Thursday on humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to rebel-held northwest Syria, Russia has agreed to continue such deliveries but only for six months — not a year. Several U.N. Security Council members and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and more than 30 non-governmental groups wanted this aid to continue for at least a year.

Russia proposed changes to the draft resolution by Ireland and Norway that would shorten the one-year deadline for deliveries. Council diplomats said negotiations were continuing late Wednesday to see if a deal could be reached.

The Security Council has scheduled the vote for Thursday morning. If there is no compromise, Ireland and Norway's draft resolution to extend cross-border deliveries by 12 months will be voted on first. If it fails to get nine votes or is vetoed by Russia, the Russian resolution with an extension for six months will be voted on later.

In early July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would have maintained two border crossing points from Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid to Idlib. Days later, the council authorized the delivery of aid only through the Bab al-Hawa crossing. That one-year mandate was extended for another year on July 9, 2021, and expires this Sunday.

According to a Russian draft obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, the Russian directive called for increased efforts to ensure "full, safe and unhindered" humanitarian aid across conflict lines in Syria.

It also would authorize the establishment of "a special working group" comprising concerned council members, major donors, interested regional parties, and representatives of international humanitarian agencies "in order to regularly review and follow up on the implementation of this resolution."

Neither of those proposals was in the Ireland-Norway draft resolution.

Northwest Idlib is the last rebel-held stronghold in Syria, with al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham the most powerful rebel group in the region. The UN said last week that more than 300,000 civilians had been killed in the first 10 years of the Syrian conflict, which began in 2011 -- the highest official estimate of civilian casualties.

In a letter to Security Council ambassadors Wednesday, former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo warned that by authorizing cross-border deliveries to northwestern Syria, council members "could find themselves materially supporting a U.N.-designated terrorist organization."

He said northwest Syria "is controlled by Al Nusra, a U.N. designated terrorist organization affiliated with al Qaida and currently called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham." Any support to a "terrorist organization, including humanitarian assistance," is prohibited by previous U.N. Security Council resolutions, Ocampo said.

To avoid a "flagrant violation" of its resolutions, he said the Security Council should have the operation monitoring cross-border deliveries to confirm that the al-Qaida-linked groups "are not involved in implementing humanitarian aid" or remove Al Nusra-Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the "terrorist" list.

With PTI inputs