- Home
- Live Blog
- Breaking News
- Top Headlines
- Cities
- NE News
- Sentinel Media
- Sports
- Education
- Jobs
UNITED NATIONS: Russia and China have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution to keep three border crossings open for sending humanitarian aid to Syria. All the other 13 countries voted for the resolution that would have kept the two crossing points from Turkey and one from Iraq open for a year when the authorization for them ends on January 10, 2020.
A counter resolution proposed by Russia and China for keeping open only the Turkish points for six months failed to garner the nine votes required to pass.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the humanitarian situation in the northwest and northeast Syria was "horrific" and if the border crossings were closed, the situation would get markedly worse.
Friday was the last session of the Security Council for the year as it winds up work before the holiday season.
It will have to work frantically for a solution to keep the crossings open when it resumes work next month to avoid the humanitarian crisis predicted by the UN for the four million people in the area served by it and other organizations through the checkpoints.
Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenza said that the government of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad controls enough of the territory and has adequate checkpoints for the aid to get to the country.
Some of the aid going through the four crossing points were ending up in the hands of terrorist organizations, he said.
China's Permanent Representative Zhang Jun said that the circumstances under which the mechanism for the crossing points had been created were changed and all aid programmes should respect the national sovereignty of Syria. The Russian and Chinese vetoes are reckless, irresponsible and cruel and Damascus has decided to starve its own citizens, US Permanent Representative Kelly Craft said. (IANS)