DAMASCUS: The Syrian government has agreed to extend by another three months the use of two border crossings with Turkiye into the rebel-held northwest that were opened for aid delivery after a deadly earthquake in February, Syrian and UN officials said Saturday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to open the border crossings at Bab Al-Salameh and Al-Rai for three months to allow aid to flow into Idlib province a week after the Feb. 6, earthquake that hit southern Turkiye and northern Syria.
The earthquake has killed more than 50,000 people, including over 6,000 in Syria, according to the United Nations. The quake also displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Following a request by the UN and ensuing discussions, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad conveyed to UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths the decision by Syria’s government to allow the UN to continue using the two border crossing points for an additional three months, said Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Syria’s ambassador to the UN Bassam Sabbagh tweeted that the period has been extended for another three months based on Syria’s determination to enhance “stability and improve the living and humanitarian” conditions of all Syrians. He added the move also aims to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need in all of Syria.
Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib is home to some 4 million people, many of whom had been earlier displaced during the country’s 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly half a million people.
David Carden, the UN’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, said during a visit to Idlib earlier this month that since the earthquake some 2,000 trucks have crossed the border from Turkiye, providing assistance such as shelter, food, medical supplies and other services.
Carden added that the earthquake damaged or destroyed the homes of about 855,000 people.
In 2014, the Security Council authorized four border crossings to deliver aid to northwest Syria — two from Turkiye, one from Jordan and one from Iraq. In January 2020, Syria’s close ally Russia used its veto threat to reduce the number of crossing to the two from Turkiye. The following July, China and Russia used their veto power to reduce the number to just a single crossing.
Syria extends opening of 2 border crossings with Turkiye for quake aid
https://arab.news/96qs8
Syria extends opening of 2 border crossings with Turkiye for quake aid
- Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to open the border crossings at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai for three months
- Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad conveyed to UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths the decision
Lebanon has ‘more’ to do on Hezbollah disarming: US deputy envoy
“However, there’s a lot more to go“
DOHA: Lebanon still has “more” to do in disarming Hezbollah following the war between the Iran-backed group and Israel, Deputy US Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus said Tuesday.
As part of a deal agreed to end 14 months of fighting last November, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, while Israel was to pull all its forces from south Lebanon.
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the area as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there.
UN peacekeepers are also present in the area and play a role in supervising the ceasefire.
Lebanese authorities “have done more in the last six months than they probably have in the last 15 years,” Ortagus said at the Qatar Economic Forum referring to efforts to disarm Hezbollah.
“However, there’s a lot more to go,” she added.
“We in the United States have called for the full disarmament of Hezbollah. And so that doesn’t mean just south of the Litani. That means in the whole country,” Ortagus said at the Qatar conference calling on Lebanese politicians “to make a decision.”
It has also continued to launch raids on its neighbor despite the ceasefire.
Last month, President Joseph Aoun said the army was deployed in more than 85 percent of Lebanon’s south, and that the sole obstacle to full control across the frontier area was “Israel’s occupation of five border positions.”
In defiance of the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli military continues to occupy five positions close to the border that it has declared to be strategic.
Drought-hit Syrian farmers hope sanctions reprieve will restore agriculture
ALEPPO: Severe drought in Syria this year could lead to the failure of an estimated 75 percent of local wheat crops, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, threatening the food security of millions of people.
Toni Ettel, the FAO’s representative in Syria, told Reuters the agency anticipated a “food shortage of 2.7 million tons of wheat for this year, which is sufficient to feed 16.3 million people over one year.”
Under former President Bashar Assad, Damascus depended on wheat imports from Russia to support a bread subsidy program during past droughts.
Wheat farmers like Asaad Ezzeldin, 45, have seen their crops fail due to the drought. It has further strained Syria’s beleaguered agricultural sector that suffered from fighting and heavy bombardment during 13 years of civil war.
“Agriculture in Aleppo’s northern countryside has been hit because of the lack of irrigation. There is no rainfall,” he said.
Moscow, a staunch ally of Assad, suspended wheat supplies to Syria soon after Islamist rebels toppled him, citing uncertainties about the country’s new authorities.
In a surprise announcement last week, US President Donald Trump said he would order the lifting of all sanctions on Syria. Washington is likely to begin providing some sanctions relief in the coming weeks.
The flow of funds could revive the agriculture sector, providing much-needed technologies for irrigation and infrastructure renewal, Ettel said.
Unable to buy wheat and fuel, Syria’s new government had lobbied for a lifting of the sanctions that for years isolated the Syrian economy and made it dependent on Russia and Iran.
Syria’s agriculture ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday she hoped ministers would reach an agreement on lifting EU economic sanctions on Syria. The EU has already eased sanctions related to energy, transport and reconstruction, and associated financial transactions, but some argued this was not enough to support its political transition and economic recovery.
UK sanctions Israeli settlers in West Bank
Britain said on Tuesday it had sanctioned a number of individuals and groups in the West Bank who it said had been linked with acts of violence against Palestinians.
Syria FM says sanctions relief shows ‘international will’ to support country
- Lifting sanctions expresses the regional and international will to support Syria, said Al-Shaibani
DAMASCUS: The Syrian Arab Republic’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that the lifting of sanctions on his country shows an “international will” to support his country, after EU countries agreed to end most of its sanctions.
In a press conference in Damascus alongside his Jordanian counterpart, Asaad Al-Shaibani said that “lifting sanctions expresses the regional and international will to support Syria,” adding that “the Syrian people today have a very important and historic opportunity to rebuild their country.”
Syria’s driest winter in nearly 7 decades triggers a severe water crisis in Damascus
- Now, there is only a trickle of water following the driest winter in decades
- “I have been working at the Ein Al-Fijeh spring for 33 years and this is the first year it is that dry,” Bashi said
BARADA VALLEY, Syria: Inside a mountain above the Syrian Arab Republic's capital, Hassan Bashi walked through tunnels that used to be filled with water from a spring famous for its pure waters.
The spring rises inside the ruins of a Roman temple in the Barada Valley and flows toward Damascus, which it has been supplying with drinking water for thousands of years. Normally, during the winter flood season, water fills all the tunnels and washes over much of the temple.
Now, there is only a trickle of water following the driest winter in decades.
Bashi, who is a guard but also knows how to operate the pumping and water filtration machines in the absence of the engineer in charge, displayed an old video on his cell phone of high waters inside the ruins.
“I have been working at the Ein Al-Fijeh spring for 33 years and this is the first year it is that dry,” Bashi said.
The spring is the main source of water for 5 million people, supplying Damascus and its suburbs with 70 percent of their water.
As the city suffers its worst water shortages in years, many people now rely on buying water from private tanker trucks that fill from wells.
Government officials are warning that the situation could get worse in the summer and are urging residents to use water sparingly while showering, cleaning or washing dishes.
“The Ein Al-Fijeh spring is working now at its lowest level,” said Ahmad Darwish, head of the Damascus City Water Supply Authority, adding that the current year witnessed the lowest rainfall since 1956.
The channels that have been there since the day of the Romans two millennia ago were improved in 1920 and then again in 1980, he said.
Darwish said the springwater water comes mainly from rainfall and melted snow off the mountains along the border with Lebanon, but because of this year’s below-average rainfall, “it has given us amounts that are much less than normal.”
There are 1.1 million homes that get water from the spring, and in order to get through the year, people will have to cut down their consumption, he said.
The spring also feeds the Barada River that cuts through the capital. It is mostly dry this year.
In Damascus’s eastern area of Abbasids, Bassam Jbara is feeling the shortage. His neighborhood only gets water for about 90 minutes a day, compared with previous years when water was always running when they turned on the taps.
Persistent electricity cuts are making the problem worse, he said, as they sometimes have water but no power to pump it to the tankers on the roof of the building. Jbara once had to buy five barrels of undrinkable water from a tanker truck that cost him and his neighbors $15, a large amount of money in a country where many people make less than $100 a month.
“From what we are seeing, we are heading toward difficult conditions regarding water,” he said, fearing that supplies will drop to once or twice a week over the summer. He is already economizing.
“The people of Damascus are used to having water every day and to drinking tap water coming from the Ein Al-Fijeh spring, but unfortunately the spring is now weak,” Jbara said.
During Syria’s 14-year conflict, Ein Al-Fijeh was subjected to shelling on several occasions, changing between forces of then- President Bashar Assad and insurgents over the years.
In early 2017, government forces captured the area from insurgents and held it until December when the five-decade Assad dynasty collapsed in a stunning offensive by fighters led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group, or HTS, of current President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.
Tarek Abdul-Wahed returned to his home near the spring in December nearly eight years after he was forced to leave with his family and is now working on rebuilding the restaurant he owned. It was blown up by Assad’s forces after he left the area.
Abdul-Wahed looked at the dry area that used to be filled with tourists and Syrians who would come in the summer to enjoy the cool weather.
“The Ein Al-Fijeh spring is the only artery to Damascus,” Abdul-Wahed said as reconstruction work was ongoing in the restaurant that helped 15 families living nearby make a living in addition to the employees who came from other parts of Syria.
“Now it looks like a desert. There is no one,” he said. “We hope that the good old days return with people coming here.”
