UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos demanded action by the UN Security Council on Friday to get desperately needed aid into Syria, where 2.5 million people in need have not received help for almost a year.
Violence and excessive red tape have slowed aid delivery to a trickle in Syria, where more than 100,000 people have been killed in the civil war. After months of talks, the Security Council approved a non-binding statement on Oct. 2 urging increased humanitarian access.
“This is a race against time. Three weeks have passed since the adoption of this council’s statement with little change to report,” Amos told the Security Council. “As we deliberate, people continue to die unnecessarily.”
Photo: EPA
“I call upon all members of the council to exert influence and take the necessary action to stop this brutality and violence,” she said. “Without real and sustained pressure from this council on the government of Syria and opposition groups on the ground, it will be impossible to make progress.”
The Security Council adopted the statement on humanitarian access less than a week after overcoming a long diplomatic impasse between Russia and Western countries to pass a resolution to rid Syria of chemical arms.
Senior UN diplomats said that Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov had at the time dismissed the possibility of a legally binding resolution on aid access.
British UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said after the briefing by Amos on Friday: “If the [aid statement] is not being taken seriously, then obviously it behooves us to look at stronger vehicles, including a resolution.”
Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and China have vetoed three Security Council resolutions since October 2011 that would have condemned the government and threatened it with sanctions.
Australian UN Ambassador Gary Quinlan said Amos made a “direct and powerful” appeal for the council to find a way to implement its statement, drafted by Australia and Luxembourg, which urged cross-border deliveries and called for humanitarian fighting pauses and agreed on aid convoy routes.
Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that, in council consultations after the briefing by Amos, “nobody explicitly suggested a resolution, but I don’t think the format of the document is a problem.”
He suggested that the main obstacle was increasingly the disparate rebel groups.
“I’m very pleased that this time more and more members of the Security Council said that they are now realizing that the problem is not only with the government,” Churkin said. “Very often various armed opposition groups are ignoring norms of international humanitarian law.”
US State Department officials on Friday urged Russia to use its influence to convince al-Assad to allow humanitarian convoys into besieged communities around Damascus.
The officials disputed a statement by Moscow on Thursday that snipers from opposition forces were shooting pregnant women “for fun,” saying European medical workers had reported that government snipers were responsible.
“The regime’s refusal to grant humanitarian access to the UN and other humanitarian organizations is preventing humanitarian relief from reaching besieged, opposition-held areas, which can constitute a violation of international humanitarian law,” the officials said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the council statement had also urged the Syrian regime to help aid operations expand and to remove bureaucratic impediments, but so far there had been no major progress, Amos said.
She said only 15 international aid groups were allowed to operate in Syria, it was difficult for humanitarian workers to get visas, and while the number of Syrian organizations approved to work with the UN had increased to 66, the number allowed to work in the areas with greatest need was limited.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS