The looming fight between the US and Russia over cross-border humanitarian aid into Syria from Turkey, was previewed during a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres both claimed that without the cross-border mechanism (CBM), more than 1 million people could be plunged into misery, due to lack of food and medicine. “There is no Plan B,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “The Plan B is to continue to push for the extension of the mandate. Plan B means that we have failed, and hopefully we don’t fail.”
“So, I’m going to work on this every single day until it’s accomplished,” she said.
Guterres, backed up by the UN’s own humanitarian aid agency, claimed that while aid can and should be distributed via the Syrian government, that would never be enough to make up for the closure of the border crossing. “A failure to extend the council’s authorization would have devastating consequences,” Guterres claimed.
Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia replied that the solution to the humanitarian problems in Syria is to respect Syria’s sovereignty “The reasoning that it is more convenient for humanitarian deliveries is not convincing,” he said. “We are convinced that the task of respecting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as we have been repeatedly saying, must be observed not only in words but in deeds.”
“It is pointless to speak about the CBM extension until our Western colleagues convince us in word and deed that they are committed to this task. We do have time till zero hour, and we have to assure it won’t be wasted,” he added.
Nebenzia also argued with Guterres’s claim that the CBM is not replaceable. “I was surprised to hear the secretary general say in his address that deliveries across the contact line would never — I would like to stress this his word — be able to replace the cross-border mechanism in the current volume,” he said. “How can we interpret that? Does it mean that the cross-border mechanism would stay in place forever? I cannot interpret these words otherwise.”
The Security Council is expected to vote on extending the CBM on July 11.
