World News | UN delays vote on Turkey’s aid to northwestern Syria

UNITED NATIONS, July 8 (AP) The United Nations Security Council postponed an expected vote Thursday on the delivery of humanitarian aid from Turkey to rebel-held northwest Syria after failing to reach a compromise on the timing of the delivery.

Russia, one of the veto-wielding members, has asked for an extension of just six months, while many other Security Council members, the UN secretary general and more than 30 NGOs are pushing for another one-year extension.

Also read | Boris Johnson resigns as UK Prime Minister; from Partygate to Chris Pincher scandal, here is the list of events that led to his resignation.

The council is scheduled to meet on Friday morning, but it is unclear whether further consultations or votes will take place.

Closed-door consultations between the 15 council members continued into Thursday night but failed to bridge the gap between Ireland and Norway’s original draft resolution extending cross-border deliveries by 12 months and rival Russian texts calling for a six-month extension. disagreement. The last six-month extension requires a new resolution.

Also read | As Boris Johnson continues as caretaker Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, many call him a “zombie prime minister”; here’s what it means.

“We are trying to reach a consensus,” Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ireland’s ambassador to the United Nations, said after Thursday’s meeting. “No one in that room wants to disagree on such an important issue, but we have more work to do. We’ll get to work now, work through the night, and hopefully find a solution in the morning.”

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Dmitry Polyansky, said 99 percent agreed on a resolution, but said Russia insisted on a new resolution six months later.

Asked if there was a way to circumvent Russian demand, Bernard Nathan replied: “We’re working through the night.”

The United Nations said last week that the first decade of the Syrian conflict that began in 2011 killed more than 300,000 civilians – the highest official estimate of civilian casualties. Northwest Idlib is Syria’s last rebel-held bastion and the most powerful area for the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Russia, a close ally of the Syrian government, has repeatedly called for increased delivery of humanitarian aid from inside Syria across the conflict line to the northwest. This would give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government more control.

In early July 2020, China and Russia vetoed a UN resolution that would preserve two border crossings for humanitarian aid from Turkey to Idlib. A few days later, the committee authorized assistance through only one of the crossings, Bab al-Hawa.

The one-year term was extended for six months on July 9, 2021, and for another six months following the “substantive report” of UN Secretary-General António Guterres in a bid to reach a compromise with Russia. This is effectively a one-year mandate, as no second resolution is required, and that mandate expires this Sunday.

UN spokeswoman Stephane Dujarric said cross-border aid was vital for men, women and children in the Northwest, and stressed the importance of long-term planning, including costs.

“By 2021, we will have 800 cross-border aid trucks passing through each month, continuing to reach about 2.4 million people,” he told reporters on Thursday. “From January this year to June 30 this year, the number of trucks crossing over the calendar year was 4,648 trucks.”

Last year and so far this year, the United Nations has also made five deliveries across conflict lines, providing some 2,529 metric tons of aid, including food and hygiene supplies, he said.

Russia’s Poliansky said he wasn’t sure what would happen on Friday, but U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters, “Tomorrow we will be voting on a resolution and hopefully this vote will extend that resolution. 12 months.”

Thomas-Greenfield, who recently travelled to the Bab al-Hawa crossing, added: “A six-month resolution does not provide the certainty and confidence Syrian refugees need, and NGOs need to continue to plan and provide support.”

“Six months ends in January, in the middle of winter, probably the worst time,” she said.

If a compromise cannot be reached, the Irish and Norwegian draft resolutions will be voted on first. If it fails to get nine votes, or is vetoed by Russia, then Russia will extend the resolution for six months for a vote. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)