UNITED NATIONS: Annan urges Syria to accept terms for UN aid delivery, according to U.N. spokesman

Record ID: 280825

  • Title: UNITED NATIONS: Annan urges Syria to accept terms for UN aid delivery, according to U.N. spokesman
  • Date: 16th May 2012
  • Summary: UNITED NATIONS (MAY 15, 2012) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. SPOKESMAN MARTIN NESIRKY SAYING: "The joint special envoy (Annan) remains extremely concerned about the plight of 1 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance and he strongly urges the government to accept the conditions for a scaling up of the humanitarian assistance without furt
  • Embargoed: 31st May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVADR0XCXOKMYHBOXBLXEFQAQD3Z
  • Story Text: U.N.-Arab League mediator Kofi Annan is urging Syria's government to accept U.N. conditions for expanding the distribution of humanitarian aid to roughly 1 million Syrians in need of assistance, a United Nations spokesman said on Tuesday (May 15).
    The aid is necessary because of the desperate situation many Syrians find themselves in after 14 months of a Syrian government assault on an opposition that is increasingly determined to oust President Bashar al-Assad.
    "The joint special envoy (Annan) remains extremely concerned about the plight of 1 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.
    "He strongly urges the government to accept the conditions for a scaling up of the humanitarian assistance without further delay," he said.
    "He underlines the need for a speedy agreement consistent with the government's commitment to allowing unimpeded access to and provision of assistance to Syrians in need," Nesirky said.
    The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Syria have been negotiating since March on a plan for the distribution of aid, but U.N. envoys told Reuters the government and the U.N. agency are deadlocked on the issue of who would be in charge.
    OCHA chief Valerie Amos told reporters in New York on Tuesday that the process of negotiating with the Syrian government should be moving more quickly. She said the number of people who need humanitarian aid was likely higher than 1 million now.
    "It's been a very slow process," she said. "The government have now agreed with our assessment of the numbers and in what needs to be done. What we now need to negotiate is the how."
    The main sticking point in the talks, diplomats say, is that Damascus wants to manage the delivery of all humanitarian aid through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, but the United Nations insists on having some control.
    U.N. officials and diplomats say the U.N. aid office would be willing to compromise by managing aid distribution jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, but it is determined to maintain a measure of control over the delivery of aid.
    The officials and diplomats said aid distribution could be hijacked by those in the Syrian government who would like to use it as a means of getting access to opposition strongholds currently off-limits to government forces or for punishing rebel-held areas by denying them access to humanitarian aid.
    Amos has been trying to keep the issue of aid distribution separate from discussions on other aspects of Annan's peace plan, which is aimed at ending the fighting, deploying up to 300 unarmed military observers to monitor a ceasefire that has yet to take hold, and launching talks on a "political transition."
    Asked about aid delivery in Afghanistan, Amos stressed the need for the government as well as the United Nations and donors to reinforce their commitments as NATO combat troops prepare to leave by end-2014.
    "It is absolutely clear to me that the commitment to Afghanistan in terms of not just immediate humanitarian needs but longer term development has to be a long term commitment."
    A poor economic outlook in the face of shrinking aid could spell a humanitarian disaster for Afghanistan, where a third already live beneath the poverty line.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register