UN Syria envoy tells Russia: Leave Aleppo corridors 'to us'
GENEVA — The UN special envoy for Syria on Friday urged Russia to leave the creation of humanitarian corridors around Aleppo to the United Nations and its partners.
Moscow proposed the corridors a day earlier when progovernment troops tightened their encirclement of rebel-held parts of the northern Syrian city.
In comments carried later Friday by Russia's Interfax news agency, deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov said that Russia was willing to work with the UN on setting up the corridors. Russia is "ready for close and constructive cooperation with all international humanitarian organizations and, of course, with the office of the UN special envoy on Syria," he said.
Rights groups and civilians trapped in opposition-held neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo however reacted critically to Russia's plan, saying it does not guarantee safe passage or give residents a choice of where they flee to.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva said he was not consulted on the proposal, which was first announced Thursday by the Russian defense ministry. "That's our job," he said of the corridors plan, but expressed support "in principle" for these although it must be "under the right circumstances."
De Mistura said: "How do you
expect people to walk through a corridor–thousands of them–while there is shelling, bombing, fighting?"
With airstrikes on Aleppo continuing, the Russian proposal seems more like an effort to "depopulate Aleppo City in preparation for concerted pro- regime ground operations to force the surrender of opposition groups within the city," the Institute for the Study of War said.
"The clock is ticking for the Aleppo population," de Mistura said. Aleppo is now possibly the largest besieged area in Syria, with an estimated 300,000 residents trapped inside.
Robert Mardini, Middle East director for the International Committee for the Red Cross, said those who choose to stay in Aleppo must be protected and that all parties must allow humanitarian agencies to reach them.
"Humanitarian corridors need to be well and carefully planned, and have to be implemented with the consent of parties on all sides," Mardini said, and that he had no indication that all involved groups had agreed to the plan.