France has promised €12 million in emergency aid to Syrians after a massive earthquake hit Turkey and Syria earlier this week, killing more than 21,000 people.
The aid would be disbursed "through non-governmental organisations and the United Nations in all regions affected", foreign ministry spokesman François Delmas said on Thursday.
After almost 12 years of civil war, Syria is divided between regions controlled by the government, jihadists and rebels, and semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake on Monday hit both regime and opposition-held areas of the country, killing nearly 4,000 people. The rest of the victims were across the border in Turkey.
Many victims live in the country's last major opposition bastion of Idlib – an enclave in northwest Syria.
NGOs have struggled to provide it with humanitarian aid since there is a single border crossing with Turkey.
The French aid would include five million euros for a United Nations fund providing cross-border aid to northwest Syria, Delmas said.
Sanctions
Another five million euros would go to "several French and international NGOs working on emergency responses in the health, shelter, water, hygiene and sanitation sectors".
The final two million euros was "under review" for urgent food aid.
Western nations have refused to deal with the Damascus regime, which has been under sanctions since 2011. This in response to President Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown on protesters, which spiralled into a civil war.
Delmas said the aid for Syrians would in no way change France's "political approach" to al-Assad's government, and that Paris still backed a political solution to end the conflict.
Emergency must not be 'politicised'
Meanwhile, the UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said everything must be done "to make sure that there are no impediments whatsoever to the life-saving support that is needed in Syria".
Syria has been ravaged by more than a decade of civil war and at least 3,317 people died in the quake.
There have been calls for the sanctions to be temporarily lifted to facilitate the arrival of aid.
Others meanwhile highlight that sanctions are not designed to impede aid.
"Emergency response must not be politicised," Pederson told reporters in Geneva on Thursday.
He said he had been "discussing the issue, in particular with representatives from the United States and from the European Union".
"They assure me that they will do whatever they can to make sure that there are no impediments to assistance coming to Syria to help in this operation," he said.
Access and resources
The rebel-held areas of Syria near Turkey's border are in a dire situation since they cannot receive aid from government-held parts of Syria without Damascus's authorisation.
At the same time, the sole border crossing used to shuttle life-saving aid from Turkey into conflict-ravaged Syria has seen its operations disrupted by the earthquake.
A first aid convoy managed to cross there Thursday, and Pedersen voiced confidence that "there will be obviously more assistance coming".
"Our immediate asks are two: access and resources. We need life-saving aid. It's desperately needed by civilians, wherever they are, irrespective of borders and boundaries," he said.
"We need it urgently, through the fastest, most direct and most effective routes," he said.
Crossing points reduced
Humanitarian aid in rebel-held areas usually arrives through Turkey via a cross-border mechanism created in 2014 by a UN Security Council resolution.
But it is contested by Damascus and its ally Moscow, and under pressure, the number of crossing points has been reduced to just one from four.
Asked whether it would be possible to open more border crossings to get aid through, Pedersen told French news agency AFP that the Turks were opening more crossings.
However, since the crossings had not been approved by the UN via the Security Council, it would be "difficult for the UN to use them", he said.
(with AFP)
