Situation in Syria leads to one of ‘no peace, no war’ — UN chief

UNITED NATIONS, March 30. /TASS/. The situation is Syria after 10 years of conflict is moving to the one of "no peace, no war," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday speaking at an informal meeting of the UN General Assembly in light of the tenth anniversary since the Syrian conflict began. "Let me reiterate at the outset that that there can be no military solution to the conflict in Syria, and yet the situation continues to drift toward one of ‘no war, no peace’," he said. Guterres stressed, "a decade of conflict, corruption, mismanagement, regional financial crises, sanctions, and the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to Syria’s economic meltdown and soaring poverty levels." "Nine in ten Syrians now live in poverty, with 60 per cent of the population at risk of going hungry this year—the highest number ever in the history of the Syrian conflict," the secretary general pointed out. "Syria is the world’s largest refugee crisis," he added. Cross-border aid The mechanism of cross-border deliveries of humanitarian aid to Syria should be extended by at least one more year, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. "The United Nations dispatched an average of 1,000 trucks of aid per month in 2020, crossing the border from Turkey to Idlib, and reaching 2.4 million people each month throughout the year," he underlined. According to him, "Cross-line convoys, even if deployed regularly, could not replicate the size and scope of this operation." "And despite significant and continuing efforts by the United Nations, we have not yet managed to create the conditions to deploy the first convoy from Damascus to northwest Syria," he believes. "A large-scale cross-border response for an additional 12 months remains essential to save lives." The UN head underlined that scrapping this mechanism will particularly "would end the UN’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plans for millions of people in northwest Syria, and greatly diminish essential humanitarian operations.". Read more