First Briefing under Resolution 2165 on Cross-Border Humanitarian Access in Syria
Tomorrow morning (30 July), Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos will brief Council members for the first time since the 14 July adoption of resolution 2165 on cross-border humanitarian access in Syria. Many Council members are likely to highlight the importance of resolution 2165, while also emphasising that resolution 2139 was broader than humanitarian access and that the Council should keep its gaze firmly focused on the human rights and protection of civilians elements of that resolution as well.
Amos last briefed on 26 June, reporting that the Bashar al-Assad regime used the distribution of humanitarian aid as a tactic of war and had failed to allow access across borders or to besieged and hard-to-reach areas. Media reports at that time indicated that 90 per cent of aid was being distributed in government-controlled areas. She said there had also been no progress in implementing any of the other key demands of resolution 2139 such as the need to observe medical neutrality, cease aerial bombardments or ease administrative hurdles, and is expected to reiterate these points tomorrow as well,. In fact, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, those in need of humanitarian assistance increased from 9.3 million to 10.8 million and those in hard-to-reach areas increased from 3.5 million to 4.7 million since the adoption of resolution 2139 on 22 February 2014. Most alarmingly, while needs increased, access dropped significantly due to even more arduous clearance and transport procedures put in place by the government.
Resolution 2165 authorised cross-border and cross-line access for the UN and its partners to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria without state consent, creating the potential to help an additional 2.9 million people in need. It authorised access through two border crossings with Turkey, one with Jordan and one with Iraq. Many Council members are expected to commend the UN on how fast it was able to put resolution 2165 into practice with the first aid convoy traversing the Bab al-Salam crossing from Turkey ten days after adoption, on 24 July.
Amos will present a report (S/2014/525) tomorrow for the period 18 June to 21 July that will include coverage for only a week of activity following the adoption of resolution 2165. Council members will be interested in receiving an update on activities since 21 July—in particular, the operational and coordination aspects of organising cross-border aid deliveries. They will want more information on the 24 July humanitarian convoy, how long it might take such aid to be distributed, how many people it will potentially help and in which areas. Council members will also be interested in plans for further convoys using the other authorised crossings in Turkey and Jordan. Meanwhile, it is unclear when the security situation will allow use of the Iraq crossing due to the presence of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) on either side of the border and its control of the crossing.
The issue of how the UN can best deliver aid across conflict lines within Syria is also likely to be of great interest to Council members tomorrow. Resolution 2165 authorised cross-line access without state consent. However, in practice, implementing such authorisation will be a difficult balance to maintain. The UN needed resolution 2165 to circumvent government restrictions on getting aid into the country, but at the same time, it will need to cooperate with Damascus, while not necessarily requiring its permission, to keep such aid flowing throughout the country.
Administrative restrictions were a core issue during the negotiations on resolution 2165, and Syria insisted that all aid should be redistributed under the government’s authority.
Tomorrow’s briefing is expected to demonstrate that the regime has continued to consolidate its central approval processes. Most recently, governors are no longer allowed to authorise convoys without a case-by-case approval from Damascus. Such restrictions are now applied to almost all aid programmes, whereas previously they were mostly applied to hard-to-reach areas. Council members may be concerned that this has resulted in a further lowering of overall access during the reporting period. Access has also declined in the eastern provinces where ISIS has its stronghold.
Council members will also want more details from Amos about progress in deploying the mechanism established by resolution 2165 to monitor the humanitarian nature of aid convoys and to notify Syrian authorities. While it is still in its early days, Council members will also be interested in an initial discussion of how to assess progress in the coming months. Cross-border and cross-line access, as well as the monitoring mechanism, are only authorised for 180 days. Some Council members are already thinking ahead to the juncture when the Council will either need to renew the authorisation or prepare to follow up on the threat in resolutions 2139 and 2165 to impose measures for non-compliance.
Following tomorrow’s briefing, the next planned meeting for Council members on Syria will be in early August when Special Coordinator of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-UN Joint Mission Sigrid Kaag will brief on the chemical weapons track.
Additionally, on the political track, Council members may want to hear from the newly appointed Special Envoy, Staffan de Mistura, on his plans for reviving the political process, although no such meeting had been planned at press time. Council members were about to have an informal meeting with De Mistura on 18 July, but this was cancelled due to an emergency Council session on Gaza.
