MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/. The United States and its allies continue to politicize the issue of humanitarian assistance to Syria and are dodging the implementation of their commitments, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said on Monday.
According to the Kremlin aide, humanitarian problems will be the focus at a meeting between Russian, Iranian and Turkish Presidents, Vladimir Putin, Ebrahim Raisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Tehran on July 19.
"The United States and its allies continue to politicize issues of humanitarian assistance to Syria. Over the past year, they have failed to implement their liabilities concerning the support for projects on the early restoration of Syria’s basic socio-economic infrastructure and mitigate the sanctions, although corresponding understandings were reached a year ago and committed to paper in United Nations Security Council resolution 2585 on the cross-border mechanism," Ushakov said.
"Taking into account requests to us concerning the cross-border aid delivery mechanism to Idlib, Russia once again agreed to a compromise and on July 12 supported Security Council resolution 2642 on the extension of this mechanism for another six months to give one more chance to the parties to implement their commitments," he said.
He noted that it was suggested the mechanism be extended for one more year. "But we agreed on six months only and once again stressed that we are against any further extensions and next time our position will be expressed more categorically," the Kremlin aide stressed. "We believe that the cross-border mechanism is a temporary and emergency measure, which is to be ended as violating international humanitarian law and, what is very important, Syria’s sovereignty."
Touching on the topics of the upcoming Tehran summit, Ushakov said that "the heads of state will discuss in detail steps on the humanitarian track of settlement." "The socio-economic situation in Syria is extremely difficult and the West’s illegal unilateral sanctions against Damascus have had a serious negative impact," he added.
"According to the United Nations Security Council resolution and within the Astana process, efforts are being taken to create favorable conditions for the return of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes," the Kremlin aide said.