On Monday, a council diplomat said that Russia restricted the United Nations Security Council from issuing a statement sounding alarm about the heightening fights in and around Syria’s Idlib province and the likelihood of a humanitarian disaster.
The thwarted talk signified the most recent, in a series of logjams over Syria in the United Nation’s most influential body.
Fighting has sky rocketed in Idlib and surrounding areas in northwest Syria since government troops started pushing into the enclave on April 30, in a bid to retake the country’s last rebel-held redoubt after eight years of civil war. The United Nation says that an estimated 3 million people are caught in the crossfire.
Belgium, Kuwait and Germany, after multiple briefings last week on Idlib, suggested that the council shows concern about attacks on poor civilians and assaults by extremist groups not excluding the potential for humanitarian catastrophe if a full-scale military operation unfolds, according to a draft seen by The Associated Press. It called for humanitarian access, safe return for refugees and for following international humanitarian law on protecting civilians.
“It was really simple,” Kuwaiti Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi said when asked about the proposal at an unrelated news conference.
However, key Syrian ally Russia objected on Monday to the proposed statement, said a diplomat, who agreed to tell about the private discussions only if not quoted by name.
Russia’s United Nation mission didn’t at the go respond to an inquiry about the proposed statement.
In a recent sign of the council’s divide on the issue, 11 council members, which includes Germany, Kuwait, Belgium and the U.S., issued a statement last month that also expressed concern about the intensifying hostilities around Idlib and the potential for humanitarian catastrophe. Four council members — Russia, China, South Africa and Indonesia — didn’t join in supporting that statement.
Mansour, whose country holds the council’s rotating presidency this month, said Monday that members would continue discussions.