MESOPOTAMIA NEWS TOP OF THE AGENDA – UN Warns of Humanitarian Crisis in Syria

 

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of a potential “humanitarian catastrophe” in northwest Syria as government forces and their allies appeared to be readying a major military offensive to retake Idlib, the final rebel stronghold.

The warning from the UN chief came as Russia announced it would hold naval drills (TASS) in the Mediterranean next week, and its foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, described the region (Reuters) as a “last hotbed of terrorists” and a “festering abscess.” Some three million people live in the province of Idlib (VOA), including a million who have been displaced from other parts of Syria. The UN special envoy to the Syrian conflict, Staffan de Mistura, called for humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians (Guardian) before an attack on the estimated ten thousand militants in Idlib.

ANALYSIS

“Russia, at least in the short term, and Turkey both have an interest in avoiding a full-scale military operation and ultimately reaching an outcome that could be similar to the one in Busra al-Sham, where factions handed over their weapons,” writes the Carnegie Middle East Center’s Hadeel al-Saidawi.

“Now that the last remnants of the 2011 anti-Assad popular uprising are being methodically crushed, [Russian President Vladimir Putin] is intent on recruiting western support for so-called reconciliation plans, as well as western contributions to Syria’s ‘reconstruction’, all of which would take place under Russia’s control,” Natalie Nougayrede writes for the Guardian.

“The situation in Syria reveals the profound ambivalence of Americans toward the Middle East and the declining importance of what U.S. officials have long considered Washington’s interests there: oil, Israel, and U.S. dominance of the area to ensure the other two,” CFR’s Steven A. Cook writes for Foreign Policy