Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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New York, SANA – Members of UN Security Council on Wednesday adopted Resolution No. 2191 with focus on its articles no. 2 and 3 on the issue of entering and providing humanitarian aid to Syrians whether, through operations taking place inside the country in the framework of the Response Plan and in coordination with the Syrian government and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), or through the so-called Troika of Security Council ambassadors in “operations through borders”.
Syria’s permanent envoy to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said in a statement ..the Syrian government has been a partner that fulfilled its obligations completely and continuously in the operations aiming at delivering humanitarian aid to all Syrian areas“, and that is why it signed six response plans with OCHA and the seventh is to be signed soon.”
He pointed out that ambassadors of Jordan, Luxemburg and Australia at the UNSC, who proposed the initiative of adopting the Resolution, do not follow up the situation in Syria and do not read reports by senior United Nations officials in Damascus which are completely different from what the troika ambassadors said, particularly when these reports show that the reason behind hindering the entrance of the aid is not the Syrian government but the terrorists who prevent the entrance of aid convoys.
Al-Jaafari clarified that the Turkish government prevents OCHA workers from using Nusaybin border crossing for entring the aid to the country, as the terrorist organization of “the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) also prevents the entrance of aid through borders with Iraq, adding that these points were not referred to.
“In light of Secretary-General’s latest report on the implementation of Resolution No. 2165, the United Nations was able to deliver aid but only to 5% of the people in need, we still hear Troika ambassadors saying that without the resolution on entering aid Syrians will starve” the Syrian senior diplomat said, adding “aid was delivered to 95% of the needy inside Syrian territories thanks to full cooperation of the Syrian government and the tremendous work of Organization of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), which has lost 39 of its members so far while they were fulfilling their duty in delivering humanitarian aid.”
Al-Jaafari said .. there is a “gentlemen agreement “ between the Syrian government and members of UNSC and the UN Secretary-General and this agreement is part and parcel of Resolution No. 2165, adding that the agreement refers that OCHA ought to notify the Syrian government 48 hours before sending aid through borders. OCHA is also supposed to notify the Syrian government of the content and destination of the aid.
“This is the reason behind the agreement of all sides with the Syrian government on what is called monitoring mechanism of assistance crossing borders… and we even have the right to agree on the nationality of the workers, but of course Under Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos did not respect this agreement since the first hours of signing it” he added.
Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN expressed Syria’s hope that those who submitted the resolution 2191 discussed with the Syrian government the reasons led to the inefficiency of the UN procedures to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria, particularly those which were included in the UN Resolution No.2165.
He elaborated that the main reasons for the UN failure are: denying that terrorism , backed by some known countries, was the main reason for the eruption of the humanitarian crisis in many areas across Syria as well as OCHA’s non-cooperation with the Syrian government and its insistence to deliver the aid across the border without a precedent coordination with Syria and engaging Syrian Arab Red Crescent ( SARC) in the process which caused fall of humanitarian aid in the hands of armed terrorist organizations, he continued.
The lack of finance is also one of the main obstacles facing the implementation of the Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan for 2014 (SHARP) as the volume of finance that has been ensured didn’t exceed more than 39 per cent, al-Jaafari said.
Imposing unilateral, coercive and illegal measures by some countries which alleged their friendship to the Syrian people has directly affected the living situation of the Syrian people, government and private sector’s ability to ensure their needs, al-Jaafari added.
He criticized the irresponsible and criminal acts perpetrated by some member-states, mainly the EU recent decision to stop fuel supply to Syrian civil plans describing it as “a violation of the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Canada”.
Answering journalist questions, al-Jaafari said .. Jordanian, Luxemburg and Australian ambassadors have presented a misleading and baseless draft resolution which proves their carelessness towards the issue of delivering humanitarian aid to Syrians.
Al-Jaafari stressed that everyone is called to understand the reality of what is going on in Syria as this resolution aims at delivering humanitarian aid to those who are in need in Syria, but not to topple Syrian government.
He went on saying that despite of all briefs presented by Amos to the Council she wasn’t able to deliver more than 5 per cent of humanitarian aid across the borders ,that is because the plan was “illogical and impractical and tried to avoid cooperation and coordination with the Syrian government for certain political goals.”
“In some cases UN employees left humanitarian aid convoys, which were only 239 trucks, in areas under control of Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS or other terrorist organizations.
On a question over Resolution 2165 and non mentioning local parties in it and no hints of US and its allies air campaign, and the stance of the Syrian government towards the impact of this issue on killing civilians and hindering delivery of humanitarian aid, al-Jaafari said .. we informed OCHA, UN Secretary General and a number of the Council’s members when Israel recently breached Disengagement of Forces Agreement 1974 by targeting some areas in Damascus, asserting that Syria called for enrolling this issue but they didn’t respond as they seek to violate Syrian sovereignty as Israel did, accusing some UN members of deeply sharing Israeli misleading campaign against Syria.
On a question of the impact of the so-called the “freeze zones” on the humanitarian aid, al-Jaafari said De Minstura’s track is completely different as it is a political track, adding that the preliminary articles of the resolution didn’t include any hint of UN Resolution no. 2170 and 2178 nor to De Mistura’s mission, but it was referred to recently.
R. Milhem/ H. Zain/ Barry
