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Roundup: UN Security Council briefed on sieges in Syria ahead of political dialogue

Xinhua, January 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

The UN Security Council Friday was briefed on humanitarian access to besieged areas in Syria ahead of much-anticipated political talks on Jan. 25.

UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kyung-wha Kang told the 15-member council that the besieged town of Madaya -- where Syrians are dying of starvation -- is one of many Syrian towns beyond the reach of humanitarian access.

"Regrettably siege and starvation as a weapon of war has become routine and systematic in Syria, with devastating consequences for civilians," said Kang.

Kang said that requests for humanitarian access in Syria routinely went unanswered.

"Our requests have mostly gone unanswered and the people of Syria continue to live in a nightmarish reality dictated by a conflict that respects few rules and obeys no laws," she said.

Francois Delattre, France' s permanent representative to the UN, said that his country called for the meeting on the sieges in Syria together with the United Kingdom to ensure the Security Council discussed the situation ahead of the planned political dialogue on Jan. 25.

"(We called this meeting) to create the necessary conditions ahead of the launch in a few days of the intra-Syrian dialogue," said Delattre.

"There will be no credible political process without serious, palpable, tangible progress on the humanitarian track," he said.

China' s Permanent Representative to the UN Liu Jieyi told the council that the worsening humanitarian crisis only reinforced the need for the political talks.

The international community should remain steadfast in its search for a political solution, said Liu. "At a time when the humanitarian situation is becoming worse, the need becomes greater for a push for a political solution," he said.

Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Safronkov raised concerns that the meeting was unnecessarily politicizing humanitarian issues ahead of the planned dialogue.

Responding to journalists after the meeting, Kang said that humanitarians did not wish to politicize the issue.

"As humanitarians we constantly ask and push for access and it is not our working that politicizes aid," Kang said.

About 400,000 Syrians are under siege included some 200,000 besieged by IS, another 170,000 besieged by government forces, and around 15,000 besieged by non-government forces, Kang added.

UN Security Council resolution 2254, adopted in December 2015, requires the Syrian peace talks to begin in January. Endi