He said that the World Food Program has completed a plan for air drops or landings of food and medical supplies to hundreds of thousands of people in besieged areas and are “still an option” if land convoys do not succeed.
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More than 20 countries agreed at a meeting co-chaired by Russian Federation and America on 17 May that air drops should be used by a deadline of 1 June if the Syrian government was not allowing land convoys through to hundreds of thousands of Syrians besieged mainly by its forces.
In a news conference that included “bad news”, de Mistura said that in Darayya, a government-besieged suburb of Damascus that has been without food deliveries for four years, a mosque had been “heavily shelled”. “Because it is not the first time that there has been this type of incident”.
“But, you know, you talk about air assets and permission, and Russian Federation actually has air assets on the ground in Syria and ostensibly has the permission of the Syrian government to fly”. He said that this support “proves the falsehood of [the United States] being against terrorism” and said “claimants of human rights are closing their eyes to the most immoral acts and crimes of terrorists” in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
Air drops to distribute aid in Syria can only go ahead only with “the benign blessing” of the Syrian government, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has said, while insisting he was not backtracking from an apparently more assertive stance taken by the global community in May.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday that his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, is a “killer” who engages in state terrorism.
“We don’t want to have talks for the sake of talks”.
“Russia actually has air assets on the ground in Syria and ostensibly has the permission of the Syrian government to fly”, Toner told reporters.
Meanwhile, Mr.de Mistura said that the deadline of 1 August set by the ISSG is “attainable”.
Dehqan called for “a decisive fight” against all terrorist groups involved in the Syrian violence, urging a halt in the flow of aid to the those groups.
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Further, he said he had heard from Russian Federation about a release of a “substantial number” of fighters detained by the Syrian government, but he wanted to get confirmation and more detail.
