Syria Reopens Key Aid Corridor for Six Months

The Syrian government on Thursday allowed the United Nations to use a border crossing from Turkey to continue delivering aid to northwest Syria for another six months after the Security Council failed to renew its authorization for the operation.

The U.N. aid deliveries would have to be "in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government", Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh wrote in a letter on Thursday to the Security Council.

U.N. Security Council approval for the Turkish-based aid operation delivering help to several million people in rebel-held northwest Syria expired Monday as members struggled to convince Russia to extend it for more than six months.

Russia vetoed a nine-month authorization renewal at the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday and then failed in its own bid for a six-month extension of the operation, which has been delivering aid including food, medicine, and shelter since 2014.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had pushed for a 12-month renewal. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the Syrian letter had been received and the United Nations was studying it.

Security Council authorization was needed because the Syrian government did not agree to the U.N. operation. It initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 into opposition-held areas of Syria from Iraq, Jordan, and two points in Turkey. But Russia and China whittled that down to just one from Turkey: Bab al-Hawa.

"The Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has taken the sovereign decision to grant the United Nations and its specialized agencies permission to use Bab al-Hawa crossing," Sabbagh wrote.

They would be allowed "to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians in need in northwest Syria, in full cooperation and coordination with the Syrian Government, for a period of six months, starting from July 13, 2023," he added.

After an earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February, Assad allowed the United Nations to use an additional two border crossings from Turkey to dispatch aid. That approval expires on August 13.