UN Security Council To Approve 6-Month Extension of Syria Aid Deliveries

The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote Tuesday to approve the extension of a mandate to deliver aid to about 4 million people in the northwest of Syria via Turkey, which expired on Sunday. The resolution, first passed in 2014, allows for essential supplies to enter through the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey into a rebel-held area of northwestern Syria; it has been renewed on a yearly basis until a Russian veto on Friday. The six-month extension, which originally had been dismissed by the United States, France and the United Kingdom as not long enough for aid groups to plan and operate effectively, was put forward by Ireland and Norway and is similar to a Russian draft resolution. Russia has been a strong backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his government. It says that aid operations from outside of Syria violates Syria’s sovereign territorial integrity and is calling for humanitarian aid deliveries to northwest Syria to come from within the country; this would give the Syrian government more control over who receives the aid. The Bab al-Hawa crossing is in the northwestern Idlib region where many of Syria’s internally displaced people now reside. More than 4,600 aid trucks, carrying mostly food, have crossed into northwest Syria from Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa crossing this year, according to the UN.