Syrian Kurds reject UN suggestion to provide aid through Turkish border crossing

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Syrian Kurds have strongly condemned statements by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday that urged the UN Security Council to provide aid to northeastern Syria through the Tal Abyad border crossing.

In late December, China and Russia vetoed against keeping the Yaroubiyeh border crossing open, which connects areas in Syria held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) eastward to Iraq.

As a result, the UN’s Yaroubiyeh operation that previously supplied 40 percent of the medical provisions used in SDF-run areas was closed in January. 

On Sunday, Guterres said the Tal Abyad border crossing “would constitute the most feasible alternative to the Yaroubiyeh border crossing.”

“An estimated 1.9 million people are assessed to be in need of humanitarian assistance in northeast Syria, the vast majority of whom – 1.34 million people – are in areas not under government control,” Guterres said. “Medical stocks are expected to run out in the coming months.”

But senior Syrian Kurdish officials immediately rejected Guterres’ comments, fearing the move would allow Turkey to stop aid going to areas under SDF control.

“The UN’s suggestion to deliver aid to northern Syria through [border] crossings controlled by the Turkish occupation is an explicit support for Turkey in Syria under a humanitarian banner,” Aldar Xelil, head of the Diplomatic Relations Office for the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), said in a public statement.

“These suggestions play a negative role and distort the image of the UN and its neutral role, which aims to achieve justice and peace.”

Moreover, the fear that Turkey could use vital aid or water resources as a political instrument is not ungrounded.

For three consecutive days, Turkish-backed groups have allegedly cut supplies of drinking water from the Alouk Water Reservoir to Hasakah, the pro-Syrian government news agency SANA reported.

Around 460,000 people in Hasakah city and its surrounding areas are dependent on the station for their water supply.

The local Self Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria also fears the developments could help bolster Turkey’s ongoing control of territory in northern Syria following its attacks on and occupation of the towns of Tal Abyad and Serekaniye in October 2019. 

Abdel Qader Muwahhid, the Arab Joint Head of the Humanitarian Affairs Office in the Autonomous Administration, said in a public statement that the decision “would legitimate the Turkish occupation and [would] also contribute [to] the process of demographic change, which happened in the areas under” Turkish control.

According to Thomas McClure, a Syria-based researcher at the Rojava Information Center, although it is right to note that 1.9 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in northeast Syria, it is “profoundly dishonest to suggest that aid sent via Tal Abyad will reach the vast majority of these people.”

“Tal Abyad is now a hotbed of looting, forced disappearances, extortion, torture, and murder of civilians, and there is no chance aid sent here will reach the autonomous territories of north and east Syria,” he told Kurdistan 24.

“In fact, it will pass into the hands of those same militias which drove hundreds of thousands from their homes during the 2019 offensive.”

McClure suggested it is a political statement “intended to look good to the outside world and placate Turkey and Russia, and not one made on the basis of actual humanitarian needs.”

However, he added that if the UN is serious about getting vital aid to millions of people, it would have to re-open the aid flow to SDF-held territories “as a matter of urgency.”

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany