Syria allows UN to use Bab Al-Hawa border crossing for six more months for aid delivery

Syria has notified the United Nations that it can use the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing on the country’s border with Turkey for humanitarian aid deliveries to those in need in northwest Syria for another six months as of July 13, 2023.

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bassam Sabbagh said in a letter to the UN Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council: “Based on Syria’s keenness to enhance stability and improve the humanitarian and living conditions of all Syrians, and to continue its efforts to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid to those in need in all regions, the Syrian government has taken a sovereign decision to grant the United Nations and its specialized agencies permission to use the Bab al-Hawa crossing 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 7/13/2023.”

Sabbagh stressed the need that the United Nations and its representatives and staff must not communicate with terrorist organizations and groups and illegal administrative structures associated with them in the northwest of Syria, including the so-called “interim government” or “salvation government”.

He renewed Syria’s call for allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to supervise facilitating and distributing the humanitarian aid in areas controlled by terrorist organizations in the northwest of Syria.

Sabbagh went on to say that Syria will continue to work with the United Nations and partners in humanitarian and development work, in a way that contributes to supporting the efforts of the state’s institutions in the relief and development fields, in achieving early recovery, rehabilitating and reconstructing damaged infrastructure and civil facilities.

The cross-border aid mechanism, in operation since 2014, expired on July 11. On that day, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a resolution to extend it beyond that date. A Western-backed resolution on the issue envisaged prolonging the work of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing for nine months, while a similar document, co-authored by Russia and China, stipulated a six-month extension.