Syria: International Assistance

(asked on 5th December 2016) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with (a) his US counterpart and (b) the UN on the potential use of the Joint Precision Airdrop System to deliver humanitarian relief supplies to (i) Aleppo and (ii) elsewhere in Syria.


Answered by
Tobias Ellwood Portrait
Tobias Ellwood
This question was answered on 8th December 2016

Getting humanitarian supplies to the nearly 1 million people living in the besieged areas in Syria, including eastern Aleppo, is a priority for this Government. The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Johnson) discusses the issue of humanitarian access with international partners on a regular basis. He spoke to US Secretary of State, John Kerry, about the humanitarian situation in Syria most recently during a telephone call on 20 November. They also discussed these issues with like-minded partners during the meeting convened by the Foreign Secretary in London on 16 October. These high-level discussions have not gone into detail on specific types of technology. At working level the UK is working closely with the US and UN on possible options to get aid into besieged areas.

We continue to support the UN's efforts to get humanitarian supplies to people across Syria. This is most effectively done by road. Airdrops are more dangerous and harder to implement successfully than ground access. In many cases, aid is just a few miles away from those in besieged areas and could reach people in need if the Syrian regime allowed UN road convoys in. This is true in eastern Aleppo where the opposition has agreed the UN's four point plan. We continue to urge the regime to agree it too; and we press Russia and Iran to use their influence with the regime to make this happen urgently.

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