Vote keeps aid flowing

The United Nations Security Council has unanimously agreed to a lastminute compromise that will allow humanitarian aid to continue flowing into Syria across the Turkish border for the next 12 months – just a day before deliveries of food and medical assistance to millions of Syrians living in harsh conditions were to be cut off.

The United States and Russia, which had threatened to veto any aid resolution, hailed the vote as a ‘‘historic’’ success and a direct result of what Russia’s UN ambassador called ‘‘the spirit’’ of last month’s summit in Geneva between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

An early foreign policy test for Biden, the vote may prove only a fleeting example of newfound cooperation, as Washington and Moscow face much bigger pending issues, including in cybersecurity and weapons nonproliferation.

In a phone call between Biden and Putin yesterday, Biden raised the issue of ‘‘ransomware attacks by criminals based in Russia’’ and said ‘‘the United States will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge’’.

Last year, Russian and Chinese vetoes reduced the number of crossings for UN-coordinated aid going to an estimated 14 million displaced and suffering Syrians from four to one, at Bab al-Hawa into northwest Syria. That mandate is due to expire today, at

which point all assistance, totalling at least 1000 truckloads a month into Syria’s Idlib province, would have stopped.

The US had originally asked for Bab al-Hawa to remain open for at least 12 months, and for two other crossings to be reopened. Russian officials continued to insist that the cross-border shipments, which it said were supporting terrorist groups in Idlib, were a violation of Syrian sovereignty.

Russia has been the primary military and political ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the

decade-long Syrian war. It had demanded that all aid be delivered through Damascus and distributed by the Assad government across existing conflict lines.

The UN vote ensured that aid would continue to reach millions of Syrians but ‘‘has fallen short of what is needed to meet record levels of need’’, said David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee.

Seventy-five per cent of Idlib’s population relies on humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

AP A civil defence worker searches the rubble of a house destroyed by shelling in the town of Ibleen in southern Idlib province, Syria’s last rebel enclave. Humanitarian aid can continue flowing into Idlib from across the Turkish border for the next 12 months.