Chinese envoy urges respect for Syria's sovereignty while delivering aid

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Humanitarian assistance to Syria should be delivered in a way that respects the country's sovereignty, a Chinese envoy said Tuesday.

The authorization of cross-border aid deliveries into Syria expired on Monday, and the UN Security Council failed on Tuesday to adopt either of two draft resolutions that would have renewed the mechanism.

Russia vetoed a draft resolution tabled by Brazil and Switzerland that called for a nine-month re-authorization. A Russian draft resolution, which would have renewed the mechanism for six months, failed to obtain the required number of votes for approval.

In an explanation of vote, Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, said that China regrets the failure of the Security Council to reach consensus on this important matter.

"China's position on the humanitarian issue in Syria has been consistent and clear," he said. "We have all along maintained that humanitarian assistance to Syria should be provided in a way that respects the sovereignty of Syria and the Syrian government's ownership."

Cross-line relief should become the primary modality for humanitarian assistance to Syria. The cross-border relief mechanism was a temporary arrangement made under specific circumstances, and there is a need to speed up the transition to cross-line assistance and to phase out the cross-border mechanism over time until its eventual destination, he said.

In view of the current humanitarian situation in Syria, China is supportive of continuing to keep the cross-border arrangement, Zhang noted.

"China maintains in the same breath that the Security Council must take seriously the problems and inadequacies of the existing humanitarian relief mechanism and make efforts to address these problems and inadequacies," he added.

The envoy stressed that practical measures should be taken to prevent the parties in de-facto control of northwestern Syria from once again obstructing cross-line relief efforts and to ensure that the frequency and scale of cross-line relief efforts are significantly higher than those at the same time last year.

The scope of humanitarian activities should be further expanded, he said, adding that humanitarian de-mining should be integrated into early recovery.

Adequate humanitarian funding for Syria is also an important measure of how well the resolution is implemented, said Zhang.

"We must face squarely the negative impact of unilateral sanctions on humanitarian assistance and take practical measures to eliminate such negative effects," he said.

He pointed out that dialogue and consultation is the ultimate way to resolve differences and forge consensus.

In order to extricate the Security Council from the current predicament, China calls on all parties to be rational and pragmatic, to demonstrate the political will needed, to abandon double standards and the politicization of humanitarian issues, to continue to consult patiently, and to search for the greatest common factor that can accommodate each other's concerns, Zhang said.