Syria to allow UN aid into Idlib via Turkish crossing for six months

Damascus will let humanitarian aid flow through Syria's main border crossing into opposition-administered areas, reopening a conduit that had closed after a Security Council stalemate, the country's UN ambassador said.

The Damascus government has made a "sovereign decision" to let aid move overland from Türkiye through the Bab al Hawa crossing in northwest Syria for six months starting on Thursday, Bassam Sabbagh told reporters.

But Sabbagh said the operation must be done "in full cooperation and coordination with the government."

He said the UN should not communicate "with the terrorist organisations" in northwestern Syria.

He said the UN must allow the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to supervise aid distribution in areas controlled by "terrorist organisations."

Many people in northwestern province of Idlib have been forced from their homes during the 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly a half million people and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million.

Hundreds of thousands live in tent settlements and have relied on aid that comes via neighbouring Türkiye through the Bab al Hawa crossing.

But a deal allowing for this mechanism to work – without the authorisation of Damascus – expired on Monday.

The UN says more than four million people are in need in northwest Syria.

The aid arrangement brings them food, water, medicine and other essentials.

Russia on Tuesday vetoed a nine-month extension of the agreement and then failed to muster enough votes to adopt just a six-month extension during a vote at UN headquarters in New York.

After the Syrian concession on Thursday, Secretary General Antonio Guterres' spokesperson said the UN had just received a letter from Syria to this effect and is studying it.

Importance of Bab al Hawa

Even as the Bab al Hawa crossing closed, two other crossings remained operational.

Syria's Bashar al Assad opened them after a devastating earthquake in February that killed tens of thousands of people in Türkiye and northwest Syria.

But 85 percent of the aid reaching opposition-held areas went through Bab al Hawa.

Damascus regularly denounces the aid deliveries as a violation of its sovereignty, and Russia has been chipping away at the deal for years.

Moscow is a major ally of Damascus, and its intervention in Syria since 2015 helped to turn the tide in Assad's favour.

Syria's civil war has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.