U.N. assails Syria over conditions on giving aid

BEIRUT — The United Nations agency responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid has described conditions placed by the Syrian government on aid deliveries from Turkey to northwest Syria as “unacceptable.”

The future delivery of aid across Syria’s northern border was thrown into question Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council was unable to agree on either of two competing proposals to extend the mandate for bringing aid from Turkey by way of the Bab al Hawa border crossing.

Two days later, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N. said Damascus would give voluntary permission for the U.N. to use the crossing for six months, on condition that aid delivery would be done “in full cooperation and coordination with the government,” that the U.N. would not communicate with “terrorist organizations” and their affiliates, and that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent would run aid operations.

In a letter sent to the Security Council on Friday, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press on Saturday, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said the Syrian proposal called two of those conditions “unacceptable.”

The prohibition on communicating with groups considered “terrorist” by the Syrian government would prevent the U.N. and partner organizations distributing aid from engaging “with relevant state and nonstate parties as operationally necessary to carry out safe and unimpeded humanitarian operations,” the letter said.

Stipulating that aid deliveries must be overseen by the Red Cross or Red Crescent is “neither consistent with the independence of the United Nations nor practical,” since those organizations “are not present in north-west Syria,” it said.