Syria: Russia vetoes Turkey-based UN aid operation

Russia has vetoed a nine-month authorization renewal at the U.N. Security Council for a humanitarian operation in Turkey delivering aid to 4 million people in rebel-held northwest Syria.

Russia then failed in its own bid for a six-month extension of the operation, which has been delivering aid including food, medicine and shelter since 2014. The Security Council approval for the aid deliveries expired on Monday.

Russia U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia suggested that the council mandate for the aid operation could not be salvaged.

After casting the veto and before the council vote on Russia’s six-month proposal, Nebenzia said: “If our draft is not supported, then we can just go ahead and close down the cross-border mechanism.”

“The technical rollover, for any period of time, we’re not going to accept,” he added.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the United States would continue to work with all council members to renew the aid operation and urged Russia to reconsider its position.

“It’s a sad moment for the Syrian people,” U.S. Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield told the council after Russia’s veto. “What we have just witnessed, what the world has just witnessed, was an act of utter cruelty.”

 U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had pushed for a 12-month renewal.

Guterres was disappointed that the council had not reached an agreement and urged members “to redouble their efforts to support the continued delivery of cross-border assistance to millions of people in dire need in northwest Syria for the longest possible period,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

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China abstained on the vote for the nine-month compromise renewal of the aid operation authorization drafted by Switzerland and Brazil, while the remaining 13 Security Council members voted in favour.

Only Russia and China voted in favour of Russia’s proposal for a six-month extension. Ten Security Council members abstained, and the United States, Britain and France voted against.

A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, France or Britain to be adopted by the Security Council.

Authorization is needed because the Syrian government, which has close ties with Moscow, did not agree to the U.N. operation on sovereignty grounds. Security Council votes on the issue have long been contentious – in both 2022 and 2020 the mandate expired, only to be renewed a day later.

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh told Reuters that Damascus would assess the situation and announce its position.

A violent crackdown by Assad on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to a civil war, with Moscow backing Assad and Washington supporting the opposition. Millions of people have fled Syria with millions more internally displaced. Fighting has abated with Assad back in control of most of Syria.