UN Security Council authorizes cross-border aid access in Syria

The U.N. Security Council on July 14 authorized humanitarian access without Syrian government consent at four border crossings into rebel-held areas from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, although Syria has warned it deems such deliveries an attack. 

The unanimously adopted resolution establishes for 180 days a monitoring mechanism for the loading of aid convoys in neighboring countries, which will notify Syrian authorities of the "humanitarian nature of these relief consignments." 

The United Nations says about 10.8 million people in Syria need help, of which 4.7 million are in hard-to-reach areas, while another 3 million have fled the conflict. The more than three-year civil war has killed at least 150,000 people.

Syria's government warned the Security Council last month that delivering aid across its borders into opposition-held areas without its consent would amount to an attack.

The council's action on July 14 is a follow-up to a resolution adopted by the council in February that demanded rapid, safe and unhindered aid access in Syria. The United Nations said that resolution failed to make a difference.

The new resolution allows aid deliveries across Al Yarubiyah on the Iraq border, Al-Ramtha on the border with Jordan and Bab al-Salam and Bab al-Hawa from Turkey. Both the Turkish crossings have fallen into the hands of militant Islamist fighters who have taken swaths of Syria and Iraq in the past month.

"The consent of the Syrian authorities will no longer be necessary," Luxembourg's U.N. Ambassador Sylvie Lucas told the council after the vote.

Syrian ally Russia, backed by China, agreed to support the resolution after more than a month of negotiations on the text drafted by Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan...