NEW YORK: France plans to channel aid to rebel-held parts of Syria so that these ‘liberated zones’ can administer themselves and staunch an outflow of refugees, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.
He said France and Turkey had identified areas in the north and south that had escaped President Bashar al-Assad’s control, creating a chance for local communities to govern themselves without feeling they had to flee to neighbouring countries.
‘Maybe in these liberated zones Syrians who want to flee the regime will find refuge which in turn makes it less necessary to cross the border whether in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan or Iraq,’ Fabius said after a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York on Thursday.
However, civilians in rebel-held parts of Syria have suffered frequent deadly air strikes from Assad’s forces.
It was not clear how Fabius’s promise to allocate much of its future 5 million euros ($6.25 million) aid for Syria to these areas would protect civilians and deter them from fleeing.
‘What we can see is that the opposition has taken strong positions in liberated zones in the north and south,’ Fabius said. ‘Those resisting who have taken control of certain zones and municipalities need to administer these areas.’
Credible protection for ‘liberated’ areas would require no-fly zones patrolled by foreign aircraft, but there is no chance of securing a U.N. Security Council mandate for such action, given opposition from veto-wielding members Russia and China.
Western powers have also said they will not supply weapons to lightly-armed Syrian rebels, who have few answers to attacks by Assad’s combat planes and helicopter gunships.
After the council meeting to discuss the humanitarian crisis ravaging Syria after 17 months of conflict, Western powers said military action to secure safe zones was still an option.
But they have shown little appetite for sending warplanes to Syria to protect safe havens or mount the kind of NATO bombing that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammar Gaddafi last year.
The United Nations questioned the idea of buffer zones. ‘Bitter experience has shown that it is rarely possible to provide effective protection and security in such areas,’ said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees AntDonio Guterres.
Fabius said more help must be given to rebel-held areas.
‘We need to help them financially, administratively, sanitarily and in terms of equipment. We are helping them directly as is Turkey,’ the foreign minister said.
The United Nations says nearly 20,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Assad began in March, 2011. (Reuters)