Ankara opposes establishment of a humanitarian aid corridor to Syria via its territory and wants aid to be delivered to the Syrians through a Mediterranean route, a news report said on Thursday Today`s Zaman reported
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said this week that his country renews his call for establishment of humanitarian aid corridors in Syria. Juppe first proposed such corridors in November, when he suggested creating humanitarian corridors with Syrian approval or with an international mandate for shipping food and medicine to alleviate civilian suffering. Under that plan, the corridors would link Syrian population centers to the frontiers of Turkey and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.
But Turkish officials oppose any plan under which the proposed humanitarian corridors would be linked to the Turkish-Syrian border, according to the report published in daily Sabah. This is because establishment of aid corridors would require a military intervention, as the Syrian government is unlikely to approve such an initiative.
Turkish officials say the aid corridor could be linked to a British military base in Cyprus, rather than to its border with Syria, and that the aid could be delivered to Syrian population via a sea route, the report said. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu already expressed the Turkish position to the US when he met his US counterpart, Hillary Clinton, in Washington on Monday.
"The idea of humanitarian corridors that I previously proposed to allow NGOs to reach the zones where there are scandalous massacres should be discussed at the Security Council," Juppe said on Wednesday.
He also said that the idea of aid corridors was being discussed as part of an effort to convince Russia not to veto a new UN resolution on Syria. Russia, along with China, vetoed a UN resolution that urges Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this month.
Juppe is due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later on Thursday. Lavrov, speaking after a meeting with the Dutch foreign minister on Wednesday, reiterated that Russia would not support any UN resolution that "could legitimize regime change" in Syria.
Observers say creating aid corridors would be a difficult task following the Russian-Chinese veto at the UN Security Council, given that it would require a military intervention and that Russia and China vetoed the measure mainly because of the possibility that such a resolution could lead to a military intervention.
But Ankara believes that pressure on Russia to revise its position could increase if an upcoming meeting of a new Friends of Syria group in Tunisia on Feb. 24 ends in a decisive call for change in Syria that would also include the possibility of a military intervention in Syria to open humanitarian aid corridors. Such an intervention would require a resolution under the Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which allows the UN Security Council to take military or non-military action to "restore international peace and security."
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