UNITED NATIONS, New York: The UK has asked the United Nations to provide more detailed information to the Security Council on which communities in Syria they cannot reach with humanitarian help ahead of what some diplomats say will likely be another showdown between Western powers and Russia over cross-border aid deliveries.
In a letter to UN aid chief Mark Lowcock, seen by Reuters on Friday, British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce also asked for information on “the types of aid deliveries for which the UN is required to solicit approvals from authorities in Damascus.”
“The Security Council, as well as donors and the wider international community, need to understand who is receiving aid and if safe, unimpeded and sustained access, on the basis of need and need alone to the most vulnerable, is being obstructed,” Pierce wrote in the March 3 letter.
Her request for more detailed UN reports to the 15-member body on the aid situation in Syria comes after the council in January allowed a six-year-long cross-border aid operation to continue from two places in Turkey, but dropped crossing points from Iraq and Jordan due to opposition by Russia and China.
Western diplomats have said the closure of the Iraq crossing cuts off 40 percent of medical aid to northeastern Syria.
