Syria's Assad to Allow UN More Access to Quake Victims

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to allow the United Nations to temporarily use two additional border crossings from Turkey to get aid to earthquake victims inside Syria. "I welcome the decision today by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to open the two crossing points of Bab Al-Salam and Al Ra'ee from Türkiye to northwest Syria for an initial period of three months to allow for the timely delivery of humanitarian aid," Guterres said in a statement while the Security Council met on the issue. "As the toll of the 6 February earthquake continues to mount, delivering food, health, nutrition, protection, shelter, winter supplies and other lifesaving supplies to all the millions of people affected is of the utmost urgency," the U.N. chief added. The announcement came hours after his humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, met with Assad and senior Syrian officials in Damascus. Griffiths has called in recent days for the regime to open more access for humanitarians. "President al-Assad affirmed the need for bringing in the urgent aid to all areas in Syria, including those that are subjected to occupation and the dominance of the armed terrorist groups," the official Syrian news agency SANA said about the meeting. Griffiths was in a private meeting briefing the council remotely when the secretary-general made the announcement. If Assad had failed to agree to the access, it could have led to a contentious effort in the 15-nation council to have the request approved in a resolution. Since 2019, Russia has narrowed four crossing points to just one that helps the U.N. reach 2.4 million Syrians each month in the country's northwest. After 12 years of civil war, the region is the last opposition stronghold. The 4 million residents, already exhausted from war, a crippling economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, were also hit hard by last Monday's earthquake. The U.N. has come under criticism from many quarters for the slow response to people inside Syria, particularly in that area. The first aid convoy crossed into northwest Syria on February 9, after the road from the U.N.'s transshipment hub at Gaziantep in Turkey was cleared of rubble. Since the quake, the U.N. says a total of 58 trucks have crossed into northwest Syria from the hub in Turkey, through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, carrying mainly shelter and non-food items. That included six trucks on Monday. "Opening these crossing points — along with facilitating humanitarian access, accelerating visa approvals and easing travel between hubs — will allow more aid to go in, faster," Guterres said. The U.N. plans to launch flash appeals this week to fund quake-related humanitarian operations in both countries for the next three months.