UN members failed, during an urgent meeting on Wednesday, to reach a unified standpoint towards the implementation of resolution 2401 with Russia thwarting western countries' pursuit to cease the extensive military campaign conducted by Syrian forces and backed by Iranian militias and Russian air cover-up in Eastern Ghouta.
Asharq Al-Awsat was informed by diplomats, who have attended the closed session of consultations, that tension and frustration dominated the session after listening to speeches of UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura and Chief of United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) Lisa Doughten.
De Mistura briefed the Security Council about the humanitarian condition in Eastern Ghouta, said a diplomatic source, and underpinned necessity of responding to rebel forces’ message to the UN and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to allow fighters of ISIS, Tahrir al-Sham and al-Qaeda to evacuate the district.
He considered that the five-hour daily pauses in fighting are not enough, renewing calls for implementing resolution 2401.
Concluding the session, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations Karel Oosterom said that the Security Council reiterated its calls for implementation of resolution 2401 on the 30 days ceasefire.
“We've called this meeting with the UK because the Syrian regime, as we speak, keeps besieging and bombing its own citizens in eastern Ghouta in complete violation of Resolution 2401 that was unanimously adopted by the council,” French UN representative Francois Delattre told reporters before the meeting.
Delattre pointed to Syrian government interference with a UN convoy it authorized to deliver aid.
He said it was “completely unacceptable” and another example of the “extreme cynicism of the Syrian regime.”
“France is mobilized at the highest level to pressure all those who have leverage on the Syrian regime,” he added.
