| New York Times | - |
UNITED NATIONS - The hard-won humanitarian cease-fire in the Syrian
city of Homs - the sole success that occurred during the peace talks in
Geneva - cannot be considered “progress,” the United Nations' top
official for emergency operations said ...
UNITED
NATIONS — The hard-won humanitarian cease-fire in the Syrian city of
Homs — the sole success that occurred during the peace talks in Geneva —
cannot be considered “progress,” the United Nations’ top official for
emergency operations said Thursday evening as she urged the Security
Council to ensure that aid reach those who need it and aid workers can
do their work without getting shot.
“Even wars have rules,” said Valerie Amos, the United Nations official, after briefing members of the Security Council,
as the 15-member body weighed two competing resolutions on humanitarian
access to areas ravaged by the Syrian conflict, and the United Nations
mediator for Syria warned that the peace talks in Geneva were close to
collapse.
In
the Security Council, Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg proposed one
draft, calling for punitive measures on individuals and entities that
obstruct aid delivery and naming specific besieged communities in need
of aid. Russia, which had just days earlier dismissed that text as “a
nonstarter,” proposed its own late Wednesday, lacking enforcement
language and making no mention of the besieged communities.
TURKEY
Aleppo
Euphrates
SYRIA
Mediterranean
Sea
Homs
LEBANON
Arsal
Beirut
Yabroud
QALAMOUN MTS.
Damascus
ISRAEL
50 Miles
JORDAN
Security
Council diplomats said they hoped the two texts could be reconciled.
That could allow Russia to avoid vetoing a resolution on aid during the
Winter Olympics in Sochi.
On
Thursday, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly I. Churkin,
demurred when asked about the differences. “We would not say we are too
far apart,” he told reporters. “One thing which unites us is the
realization that the humanitarian situation in Syria is very grave and
additional efforts need to be taken in order to improve it.”
His American counterpart, Samantha Power, likewise declined to discuss details.
Last
October, the Council unanimously approved a presidential statement
urging humanitarian access, though it lacked an enforcement mechanism.
Since then, Ms. Amos said in her strongest remarks on the subject to
date, 15 aid workers have been killed, little help has reached those in
need and humanitarian laws have been “intentionally and flagrantly
violated” by all parties in the war.
Ms.
Amos stopped short of calling for a resolution with enforcement
measures. She said only that the Council should exercise “levers” and
that it should be different from last fall’s presidential statement.
Crisis in Syria
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The
debate occurred as the mood darkened in Geneva, where it was clearer
than ever that modest humanitarian gains had yielded no political
progress. Lakhdar Brahimi, the Syria mediator, told senior United States
and Russian officials in a “very grim” meeting that the Syrian
government has so far refused to compromise even on the agenda, two
Western diplomats said.
Mr.
Brahimi was “very blunt,” said one diplomat, who asked not to be
identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. He added that
he believed Mr. Brahimi might call off the talks rather than risk his
credibility presiding over an empty process if Russia cannot push the
Syrian government to compromise. The Russians made no promises, the
diplomat added.
A
local cease-fire allowed United Nations convoys to deliver a month’s
worth of food to people trapped by a two-year government blockade of the
rebel-held Old City of Homs, and to evacuate 1,400 people. Several
hundred, however, were then held for questioning by security forces in a
nearby shelter.
“I
find it difficult to describe it as progress. Our people were under
fire,” Ms. Amos said. “We evacuated 1,400 people. There is nearly
quarter of a million more people to go. We provided food and medicines
to 2,500 people. There are over three million people in hard-to-reach
communities.”
Hours
earlier, the top United Nations official in Syria, Yacoub El Hillo,
said that he hoped the warring parties would strike similar deals
elsewhere, as long as they allowed not only evacuations but also aid
delivery to residents who wish to stay.
Video|3:21
Ahmad Aboud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Syrian Opposition, Explained
There are believed to be hundreds, if not
thousands, of groups fighting in Syria. These opposition groups are
fighting the Assad regime, but recently turned on each other with
increased ferocity.
Yet
critics say that framing the Homs deal as a confidence-building step to
jump-start political talks served chiefly to give an empty process the
veneer of substance while leading only to a modest delivery of aid.
Advocates of Mr. Brahimi’s choice to pull the Homs aid talks into the
Geneva spotlight contend that without the added international scrutiny,
perhaps no aid would have reached Homs at all.
Mark
Malloch-Brown, a former United Nations deputy secretary general,
insisted that while the truce was useful, the only way to go forward was
a Security Council resolution with teeth. “There has to be consequences
for noncompliance,” he said.
The
Homs deal was a victory, if a modest one, for international aid workers
who had insisted that humanitarian principles required delivering food
to the blockaded area, not just letting civilians leave, as the
government had initially proposed.
As
long as aid delivery continues to be twinned with evacuations, said Mr.
El Hillo, who personally supervised the Homs deliveries and
evacuations, the deal should be used as a model. “We certainly would
like to do that,” he said in a telephone interview from Damascus, Syria,
adding that future deals should be supported internationally and will
mean little unless aid deliveries continue regularly.
He
said the Homs deal was successful in insisting that civilians should be
allowed to leave war-torn areas and also that aid must be delivered to
those who wished to stay — principles that should be applied to aid
everyone under blockades, including by rebels.
Yet
other United Nations officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to
express concerns about policy, said that given the poor record of aid
access, deals could end up lopsided, with more evacuations than aid
deliveries.
The
deal “puts all of us in a difficult position,” a United Nations
official in Geneva said. “There’s deep unease about where it will end.”
Somini Sengupta
reported from the United Nations, and Anne Barnard from Geneva. Nick
Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva.
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