Syria Gives Green Light to Reopen Key Crossing to Opposition-held Northwest from Türkiye

Trucks loaded with United Nations humanitarian aid for Syria following a devastating earthquake are parked at Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Türkiye, in Syria's Idlib province, on Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed, File)

The Syrian government gave a green light Thursday for the United Nations to use a key crossing from Türkiye to the country’s opposition-held northwest that was closed earlier this week, but it wants to take away UN control over aid deliveries to the region.
Syria’s UN ambassador, Bassam Sabbagh, said the government is granting the UN and its agencies “permission” to use the Bab al-Hawa crossing for six months starting Thursday, but he said it must be done “in full cooperation and coordination with the government”, The Associated Press reported.
He told reporters the UN also should not communicate with “terrorist organizations” and their affiliates illegally controlling the Idlib region and must allow the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to run aid operations in “terrorist” controlled areas,
Sabbagh made the announcement after delivering letters to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council president with the government’s decision. It followed Tuesday’s failure of the Security Council to renew authorization of aid deliveries through Bab al-Hawa, a UN operation that had been vital to helping a region of 4.1 million people.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “We’ve received the letter and are studying it for now.”
But Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, was clearly not impressed, saying Bab al-Hawa has “gold standard aid monitoring” yet now Syrian President Bashar Assad has said he will open it without UN monitoring.
“Control of this critical lifeline has been handed to the man responsible for the Syrian people’s suffering,” Woodward said. “The priority needs to be getting aid flowing again, fast, to the people who need it — and then getting certainty over its future. We will not hesitate to bring this back to the Security Council.”
The main insurgent group in northwest Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al Sham, whose origins were in al-Qaida. The group and other militants are a mix of home-grown fighters and foreign militants who began coming to Syria in 2011 after an initially peaceful uprising against Assad turned into an armed insurgency.
Many people in Idlib have been forced from their homes during the 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly a half million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. Hundreds of thousands live in tent settlements and have relied on aid that comes through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.
The Security Council initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 from Türkiye, Iraq and Jordan through four crossing points into opposition-held areas in Syria. But over the years, Syria’s closest ally Russia, backed by China, has reduced the authorized crossings to just Bab al-Hawa from Türkiye— and the mandates from a year to six months.
After the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that ravaged northwestern Syria and southern Türkiye on Feb. 8, Assad opened two additional crossing points from Türkiye, at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai, to increase the flow of assistance to victim, and he extended their opening until Aug. 13.
The United Nations has also been using those crossings to deliver aid. But UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated after Tuesday’s vote that the secretary-general was trying to reopen Bab al-Hawa, which is closest to Idlib and where 85% of UN cross-border aid passed through.
Pressed on what “full cooperation and coordination with the government” will mean in practice, Sabbagh said that “I leave these details to the UN to explain,” saying the government wants Bab al-Hawa open. He said Syria also wants the UN to support the country’s development, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads, power stations, and mining activities.
On Tuesday, Syria’s close ally Russia vetoed a compromise resolution drafted by Switzerland and Brazil that would have extended the UN operation through Bab al-Hawa for nine months. That was supported by 13 of the 15 council members, as well as by the secretary-general and humanitarian organizations.
A rival Russian resolution that would have extended the aid deliveries only for six months but added new requirements failed to get the minimum nine “yes” votes for approval and was only supported by Russia and China. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council that if Moscow’s resolution wasn’t accepted it would not approve any compromise.
The Russian draft resolution included language supporting Assad’s government, which has for years delayed UN-led negotiations on a new constitution as a key step to elections and ending the conflict that began in 2011. It also referred to US and European Union sanctions on Syria and asked the secretary-general to provide a special report on the impact of these measures in December.