Statement by Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, at the Security Council meeting on Syria
We would like to thank Mr. Lowcock for his briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria.
We would first like to comment on the Council’s adoption just now of resolution 2449 (2018), extending the mandate for the cross-border delivery of humanitarian assistance into Syria. Our position on that non-transparent — to put it mildly — mechanism is well known.
The new realities in the Syrian Arab Republic demand that it be rejigged with the ultimate goal of being gradually but inevitably removed. That fact that that view was not reflected in the resolution determined our position on the vote. We were not about to block it altogether, owing to humanitarian considerations and appeals from our partners in the region.
However, we want to point out that its text is divorced from reality and is based on four-year-old formulas. For example, why keep the Dar’a-Ramtha cross-border checkpoint on the list when the Syrian authorities have been controlling it from the Syrian side for a long time now? In the next few months we intend to monitor the supply of humanitarian assistance under the cross-border mechanism carefully and demand proper transparency and accountability.
The Secretariat’s methods for preparing its reports on the humanitarian situation in Syria should also be carefully reviewed. The current report (S/2018/1104) does not cover such important points as assistance in rebuilding infrastructure, the trends in the return of refugees, the impact of unilateral sanctions on people’s lives and mine-clearance issues. We urge our colleagues to reconsider the inflexibility of their approaches, which have little to do with the current situation in Syria, and to join in the collective efforts to improve the country’s difficult socioeconomic situation, restore what the terrorists have destroyed and assure the inalienable right of refugees and internally displaced persons to return. In that context, we would like to point to the announcement by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that more than 250,000 Syrians are ready to return home next year.
In our view, a selective approach to the provision of assistance to the Syrian people is unseemly. Politicizing issues related to humanitarian assistance is unacceptable. People cannot openly defame the Syrian Government while ignoring the unilateral steps taken by other actors in the Syrian conflict. At the very least, it is unethical to pretend that Raqqa does not exist. And yet 80 per cent of the city’s civilian infrastructure lies in ruins. They are still pulling bodies out from under the rubble of people who died in the campaign to liberate the city from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who according to some estimates number more than 8,000.
Incidentally, at the time no one supported the proposal to introduce humanitarian pauses in order to get civilians away from the bombardments. We need to urgently resolve two issues that are critical to improving the situation in Syria. The first is lifting the unilateral sanctions introduced by a number of States without delay. Those restrictions harm ordinary Syrians most of all, as independent experts, including some in the United Nations system, have acknowledged, by the way.
Secondly, we have to end the illegal occupation of Syrian territory, which is not only undermining its territorial integrity and sovereignty but also strengthening separatist trends there, and that represents a threat to the national security of neighbouring countries. Withdrawal from the 55-kilometre so-called security zone established by the United States around the Syrian town of Al-Tanf is the main precondition for a lasting solution to the Rukban problem.
As we know, the conditions in the camp there, which according to various estimates is housing as many as 50,000 people, are very difficult, in fact bordering on a humanitarian disaster, with the residents basically being held hostage by the illegal armed groups active in the area that are linked to ISIL. Considering the deteriorating situation in the camp, at the beginning of November Russia supported sending a United Nations humanitarian convoy and made significant efforts to help organize it, including through its contacts with the Government of Syria. Unfortunately, the humanitarian operation within the 55-kilometre zone was not well organized.
The distribution of the humanitarian aid was farmed out to militants from the Maghawir Al-Thawra group. The staff of the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had very limited access to the distribution process, which resulted in part of it falling into the militants’ hands. That means that the next delivery of humanitarian aid to Rukban must be carefully thought through and the shortcomings of the first convoy eliminated. We have to agree on parameters that will ensure maximum transparency and the targeted distribution of assistance without the participation of illegal armed groups, and the Americans occupying the area have the responsibility for that. The fact that the trend towards stabilization is strengthening in Syria is undeniable.
Despite the continuing problems, there has been genuinely positive progress on the humanitarian front that is particularly noticeable in the territories controlled by Damascus. As we have repeatedly stressed, at this critical time the international community must now extend a helping hand to the Syrians in order to help them overcome the devastation and restore normal life for those who have made the decision to return voluntarily to their homeland. Incidentally, since the Russian initiative on this was launched in July the total number of returnees is now in the tens of thousands. Today our American colleagues gave us disinformation squared. In April the Syrian Government was blamed for a staged chemical attack in Douma in eastern Ghouta.
The outcome of the investigation is still unknown. The experts are apparently still collecting something or other. Might that be because admitting the provocation would mean acknowledging full-on involvement in the illegal act of aggression in April for which the provocation served as an excuse? And now, when we have reliable information that shells containing chlorine were used by the same militants who had used them before — which our Western partners had admitted — they have come up with a new tactic, accusing Syria and Russia of disinformation and forgery. The Syrian Government has invited specialists from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to Syria, but for some reason they are in no hurry to arrive.
Apparently they are studying something remotely. Where other areas were concerned, they were in a rush to get there, although it is true that they did their evidence-collecting in spots far from where the incidents had actually taken place. And yet now Washington has borrowed a brilliant formula originally dreamed up by London whereby the Syrian Government poisoned its own citizens with tear gas and then blamed the militants. Gentlemen, this is all dreadfully clumsy and we can see right through the propaganda. The Astana guarantors are now focusing on the situation in Idlib within the framework of the implementation of the 17 September stabilization memorandum.
However, it must be understood that the importance of a sustainable ceasefire does not negate the need to continue working to effectively combat terrorism. We note Turkey’s serious efforts within its existing commitments to separate the terrorists from moderate groups. It would be helpful if those who originally supported those groups with the aim of replacing the legitimate Government made efforts to educate them.
That would be a more fundamental contribution to the efforts to reach a settlement than the constant barrage of groundless questions and demands directed at Russia and other States about what to do and how to do it. Russia and the other guarantor countries will continue their intensive efforts on the political front with regard to implementing the decision taken by the Syrians in Sochi to form a constitutional committee. Right now, the negotiations are at a particularly intensive stage.
We continue to believe that all the parameters for the activity of a constitutional committee should be approved by the Syrians themselves. That is the only way that it can be effective and functional. We want to emphasize that there is no viable alternative to a constitutional committee.
We urge everyone to join in the collective work of establishing a comprehensive political process, which is crucial to Syria, the Middle East and the entire international community, under the auspices of the United Nations and in line with the relevant Security Council resolutions.
