...a formerly good idea gone bad...
on Thursday announced that Damascus has authorized the UN to continue delivering aid to rebel-held areas northwest of the country through a key aid route that was closed a few days prior after a Security Council stalemate.
The Security Council on Thursday failed to extend an agreement which has allowed UN to deliver relief to northwest Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing since 2014 after Russia vetoed the draft, sparking international concern for the millions of aid-dependent residents in the area.
"The government of the Syrian Arab Republic has taken the sovereign decision to grant the United Nations and its specialized agencies permission to use Bab al-Hawa crossing to deliver humanitarian aid
to civilians in need in northwest Syria, in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian government, for the period of six months, starting from July 13, 2023," read a letter from Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh to UN Secretary-General António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...seen by Rudaw English.
Sabbagh stated that Damascus will continue to work with the UN in humanitarian work, in a way that would contribute to Syria’s recovery and rehabilitation, stressing that international sanctions on the Syrian government must not "interfere with humanitarian relief operations benefitting the Syrians, or their access to basic services.
The Syrian ambassador also warned that the UN should not communicate with the groups in charge of northwest Syria, which he labeled as "terrorist organizations."
The cross-border mechanism is the only way UN aid, including food, medicine, water, and other critical resources, can be delivered to northwest Syria without having to traverse through areas controlled by the Syrian government.
The province of Idlib in northwest Syria is the last pocket of rebel-held territory in the region and is mainly controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS), which has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
The area’s residents, which include families displaced from across the country, also suffer from dire economic conditions and are heavily reliant on aid for their basic necessities. According to the UN, the humanitarian assistance provided through the cross-border mechanism reached "an average of 2.7 million people every month" in 2022.