Russia signals death of UN aid operation to Syria from Turkiye

Workers unload bags of aid at a warehouse near the Syrian Bab Al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, on July 10, 2023. (AFP)

UNITED NATIONS: Russia on Tuesday vetoed at the UN Security Council a nine-month renewal of an aid operation delivering assistance to some 4 million people in rebel-held northwest Syria from Turkiye and then failed in its own bid to instead extend it for six months.
The Security Council authorization for operation, which has been delivering aid including food, medicine and shelter since 2014, expired on Monday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had wanted a 12-month renewal.
Russia UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia signaled that the aid operation could not be salvaged.
After casting the veto and before the council vote on Russia’s proposal, he told the body: “If our draft is not supported, then we can just go ahead and close down the cross-border mechanism. ... The technical rollover for any period of time we’re not going to accept.”
China abstained on the vote for the nine-month compromise renewal drafted by Switzerland and Brazil, while the remaining 13 Security Council members voted in favor.
Only Russia and China voted in favor of Russia’s proposal for a six-month extension. Ten Security Council members abstained and the United States, Britain and France voted against it.
To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, France or Britain.
Authorization is needed because Syrian authorities did not agree to the UN aid operation. In both 2022 and 2020 the mandate for the operation ran out but was renewed a day later.
“It’s a sad moment for the Syrian people,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda 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.
“We must keep at this — the Syrian people are counting on us — and we must all urge Russia to come back to the table in good faith,” she said.
Thomas-Greenfield after the second vote added that the United States would continue to work with all council members to renew the aid operation and urged Russia to reconsider its position.
Russia argues that the UN aid operation violates Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It says more aid should be delivered from inside the country, raising opposition fears that food and other aid would fall under government control.
The Security Council initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 into opposition-held areas of Syria from Iraq, Jordan and two points in Turkiye. But Russia and China have whittled that down to just one Turkish border point.
A crackdown by Syrian President Bashar Assad on pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to a civil war, with Moscow backing Assad and Washington supporting the opposition. Millions of people have fled Syria and millions more are internally displaced.