UNITED NATIONS, December 20. /TASS/. The United Nations Security Council has adopted neither Russia’s nor the West’s draft resolution on cross-border humanitarian assistance to Syria.
Thus, Russia and China vetoed the draft initiated by Germany, Belgium and Kuwait, which was supported by 13 nations. The document envisaged to keep in place three checkpoints at the border with Iraq and Turkey to be used by the United Nations to deliver humanitarian assistance without the permission of Damascus. It also provided for the extension of the cross-border humanitarian assistance mechanism for one more year.
Moscow’s draft however failed to win the necessary number of votes. Six members of the United Council, namely the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Poland, the Dominican Republic, and Peru voted against it, while five others — Russia, China, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire — supported it, and four more — Kuwait, Germany, Indonesia and Belgium — abstained.
Moscow insists that the number of checkpoints used to deliver humanitarian assistance be reduced from four to two. Apart from that, Moscow argues that the situation "on the ground" is changing dynamically, with Damascus controlling most of the country’s territory, the mechamisn should be extended for a term of six months.
Ahead of the voting, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya warned that Moscow would vote against the Western draft. "Russia will vote against the draft resolution on the cross-border assistance mechanism in Syria initiated by the ‘humanitarian three,’" he said, adding that the resolution that kept on being extended year after year had become "obsolete as it does not consider the changes that have taken place in Syrian since 2014 when Resolution 2165 was adopted for the first time."
After the voting, the Russian diplomat said that the United Nations Security Council’s inability to reach a compromise was harmful for the Syrians. "We want to ask a rhetorical question. Who won today? No one. And who lost? The Syrians lost, about whom those who blocked our resolution today worry so much, as they assure us," Nebenzya said.
The decision to launch cross-border humanitarian assistance to Syria was passed in July 2014 as a response measure to the dramatic decrease in access to the population because of active combat. Thus, UNSC Resolution 2165 stipulates the establishment of several checkpoints at Syria’s borders and the deployment of a United Nations monitoring mission to inspect incoming cargoes to prevent weapons supplies.