Near verbatim transcript of joint press stakeout by Staffan de Mistura, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, Senior Special Advisor, and Yacoub El Hillo, UN Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syrian Arab Republic

SdeM. Good afternoon, again sorry, but we just finished our Humanitarian Task Force. So let me just start by first making one or two general comments on the overall picture and on the political overall picture. I have the pleasure here as you can see, to have both Jan Egeland and Yacoub El Hillo, who is visiting us and was attending the whole meeting so you will have an opportunity of asking and hearing the issue of humanitarian aspects and I will leave you with them.

So on the overall picture, I was as you know, accompanying the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Saint Petersburg where the Secretary-General and I had the opportunity for quite a comprehensive and long meeting with President Putin and with Sergey Lavrov, which was mostly focused on the Syrian issue, and on the political and humanitarian process.

So I am on my way now to New York and Washington. We will have a Security Council meeting on the 29th and prior to that I will have consultations in New York and also in Washington.

All that because we have to continue preparing for various options regarding the Intra-Syrian talks. You do know that meanwhile we are having what we call technical talks taking place and they have been taking place both in Cairo, already and in Moscow and the next one will be in Riyadh and other locations if and when required. These technical talks have been and are very useful. They are under the radar. They are calm and quiet and discrete, but they have been providing us with quite a lot of substantive points that will be, can be, useful when the Intra-Syrian talks will take place.

So the question is: when are we going to have the Intra-Syrian talks? Well, it will also depend on the discussions I will be having in New York and Washington and in particular the debate at the Security Council where I will definitely ask their own guidance not only about the urgent need of having a renewed Intra-Syrian talks but also what are the best conditions for holding them in the best possible chances.

As you know they are linked to the humanitarian process. They are linked to improvement on the cessation of hostilities but frankly they are particularly linked to finding a minimum critical mass particularly based on the discussion between the two co-chairs, which we are stimulating and facilitating but needs to get more concrete, so by the time we then decide to call for the new talks, we know that this time at least a critical mass around which this can be developed.

I will be able to elaborate a little bit more once I have I have ended up these discussions and probably after also having my own discussion and consultations at the Security Council and therefore will revert on that.

The aim is still July remember, because August is not a fictional but is a real timetable we are having in our own radar screen for many reasons that we already elaborated.

That is my update on that. I can take one question but then not more than one because I will like you to focus on the opportunity of having both Jan Egeland and Yacoub El Hillo here.

Q. Mr. de Mistura, if you look now to the fight between al-Nusra and the Syrian forces and the situation on the ground, what could be your evaluation for the coming round held, to have a really successful new round between the Syrians? Or how do you feel for the coming period?

SdeM. Well it is linked to what you will be hearing. On the humanitarian side, again, I will leave the details, and substantial details to both Jan and Yacoub.

June had been by far a better month than many so based on that we have seen a substantial improvement, is that enough? No, for feeling comfortable, Will that be enough for making sure that that aspect is being addressed better in order to facilitate a good chance of Intra-Syrian talks? Probably, but then look at the cessation of hostilities, Aleppo, Idlib and other places, we are not getting at the moment good news.

But the most important aspect is, don't forget that the cessation of hostilities took place when the Russian Federation and the US agreed on something, and that produced a critical mass. We are looking for the same type of critical mass on the beginning of the political transition and we can help, we are helping but we need that one.

Thank you. I will now leave the floor to both of you, and I really want to say again, once publicly how much we are all grateful to Yacoub El Hillo and his team for what they are doing. These are the people, the friends, the colleagues who are going at night and over very difficult places and they make us proud so I am very pleased to see you here and to be able to be present in person to explain and elaborate.

JE. Thank you very much. Let me first just start with the meeting we just had and then Yacoub will give you the overview of the situation on the ground. The humanitarian Task force has been explained very clearly that the situation on the ground is bad, and in many places worsening. We are working in active combat zones, we are working in the cross fire, local agreements have broken down, in many places conditions have worsened.

So it speaks quite large to a lot of good efforts that we have so far this month been able to reach 8 out of the 18 besieged areas, we hope to reach at least 7 more in the next week. The reason that we have made progress are two-fold: members of the ISSG task force have been more active, have been effective vis-a-vis the parties, and that led to the small but important breakthrough of getting to Douma, Darayya and Al-Waer for the first time, really in a very very long time.

Altogether we have now reached 16 out of the 18 besieged areas since the task force started work in February. The two remaining ones, Arbeen and Zamalka, both in rural Damascus, we hope to reach next week, is an issue of disagreement on how many people are in those places. We have an accurate assessment based on humanitarian standards, we believe there are around 40,000 people; the government has so far only cleared a fraction of that for delivery. We need to be able to go to all of the people who are there. We are hopeful that that will happen.

We are, and Yacoub will comment on that, we are very concerned however now in the situation of the four towns, they are Madaya and Zabadani in the south, besieged by Hezbollah and government forces, and Fouah and Kefraya up in Idlib, besieged by armed opposition groups. They have not had deliveries since the end of April. And it would be horrible for all of us if we are going to return to what was the situation where we started, that people were starving in Madaya and elsewhere.

The four towns agreement has to be able to get back to track, as has the agreement on al-Waer.

Finally we are acutely aware we are only alleviating suffering. Besiegement is continuing, it should never be there in the first place for civilians, neither in terms of blocking humanitarian assistance nor movement of civilians. It belongs in the middle ages, not in our time.

The area of medical relief has not become much better. The main reason for people dying within besieged areas is from preventable, easily preventable diseases because there is no medical services to speak of. Relief has not become much better. Probably the main reason for people dying within besieged areas is easily preventable diseases because there are no medical services to speak of.

Over to you.

YEH. Thank you Jan and good afternoon to you all, dear colleagues from the press. Happy to be here today. I bring you greetings from Syria, from Damascus. I am not going to add much to what Jan has comprehensively shared with you, except perhaps to say that people continue to suffer in Syria. Not only in besieged areas. Of course there the suffering is most acute because of the trapped situation where they find themselves – some for years. Siege must be lifted and it cannot be condoned as a tactic of war in this conflict in Syria. That’s very clear. We repeatedly asked for that and we will continue to ask for that. In the meantime, with the help of the Humanitarian Task Force and through our efforts on the ground of advocacy with all parties to this conflict, we will continue that quest to reach people and deliver to them. But let’s not really look at the suffering in Syria only through the lenses of siege. Let’s not do that. 13.5 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance today. Not all of them are in besieged areas. Not all of them are in hard-to-reach areas. Even those who are in easy to reach areas have humanitarian needs and all need protection. All need protection. This war continues to rage and the price is being heavily paid and borne by the average people and that is something that we must always remember. The United Nations and partners are very much on the ground. We operate in different parts of Syria with a very powerful network of partners – both international and national also working from inside Syria but also from across the borders. That effort is quite momentous. Perhaps one final point is that this costs money. The international donor community must remember that. Today we are almost at the end of June and our humanitarian appeal for 2016 is funded at 20 percent. This is the middle of the year, the income is funded at 20 percent. Humanitarian action costs money. Saving lives in a war like this costs money. The cost of doing humanitarian business in Syria is very high because of all the complications and all the impediments. We do it but in order for us to do it fully, we need the resources.

Happy to answer any questions.

Questions and Answers

Q. (Translated from Arabic) What are the challenges that really prevent you from reaching besieged areas and the areas that we haven’t been able to reach so far?

YEH. (Translated from Arabic) The list has 18 besieged locations. Since the beginning of the work of the Task Force that emerged from the International Syria Support Group which started its work on the 12th of February, and here is where I will switch to Arabic… (Arabic). So far we have been able to reach 16 of the 18 besieged locations. (Arabic) Which of the areas have you not been able to enter so far? These are Zamalka and Arbeen. (Arabic) The only two locations we have not been able to reach out of the 18 are Zamalka and Arbeen. Although the approval has been given to deliver there, we have not agreed on the number. We assess the number of people to be at 30,000 people. The Government assesses the number of people to be at a much lower rate. That dialogue continues and we are pushing very hard to deliver to these two locations next month. Shukhran.

Q. What is the reason that the Syrian regime bombs the areas before and after you deliver aid?

YEH. It’s a terrible thing that when we are allowed to go and deliver to a place - and I believe you are referring to Darayya in particular - that immediately after, we get reports of shelling and strikes and attacks. It is terrible and we do register our objection to this repeatedly. It is also something that is taken up at many other levels at the United Nations, including with the Special Adviser but also with the Special Envoy. It is also something that we must continue to call for its stoppage. People cannot be punished simply because they have been given the opportunity to receive humanitarian assistance. It’s very clear.

Q. Tom Miles from Reuters. Similar question about people seeming to go back on agreements very quickly. The Russians announced a ceasefire in Aleppo – was it last week for 48 hours? And then it seems that within minutes or an hour of announcing it at this meeting last week, they had already broken it with airstrikes. There have also been allegations about Russia using cluster munitions in Syria and I don’t know who is investigating this. Whether it’s the Humanitarian Task Force’s job to investigate these sort of claims. But it’s difficult to see Russia as an honest broker when its role in Syria is so questioned and when it’s ready to break its own ceasefire very shortly after announcing it. I may be wrong but please correct me. Thanks.

JE. We are indeed very, very disappointed as humanitarians that the cessation of hostilities, including the one in Aleppo, did not lead to much. The fighting is also one of the reasons we are not able to deliver to the four towns: Fouah, Kefraya, Madaya and Zabadani. And these are areas that are long overdue. Starvation will start in those areas if no cessation of hostilities starts there. It hasn’t however prevented our courageous colleagues on the ground to go to places. So, as we speak today, our UN, Red Cross, Red Crescent colleagues are in Sheikh Maksoud, which is a convoy with food to 22,500 people and it is just north of Aleppo. We were in Afrin which was also in the Aleppo area in last week, and also in Jiroud in rural Damascus today. So today 62,000 people will be reached in (inaudible) combat zones, but you know we are hanging in by our fingernails in these areas. If the fighting continues, it won’t be possible to be able to keep up even the delivery we have today. So our appeal is to our colleagues in the Cessation of Hostilities taskforce and all of its Member States to go back on track with a cessation of hostilities because that is needed for the humanitarian work. (inaudible). I would not comment on individual Member States’ work and this is the work of the cessation of hostilities area. In our area, I would say, humanitarian wise, the Member States, including the co-chairs, have been able to help our access and we regret that they have not been able to help us with the cessation of hostilities that we need.

Q. You asked a couple of weeks ago for approval of airlifts. If the ground conditions continue to make it impossible to reach those places, did you get approvals for airlifts? I know you’re being reluctant to incur the expense, but do you have any particular plan to activate that plan?

YEH. All options to deliver humanitarian assistance are on the table. We use cross-border access, we use cross-line access, we use regular program access, and that is why we are able, every month to reach millions of people with humanitarian assistance. Yes it is more difficult and challenging when it comes to besieged areas and that is the reason why we have a taskforce composed of no less than 20 countries trying to actually overcome the obstacles there. Airdrops or air bridges is another mode of delivery and in fact as you know we are using this quite effectively since the 10^th of April in Deir Ez-Zor where we have 110,000 people totally besieged, and who we had not been able to reach for over a year, but since the 10^th of April, we have been able, through the excellent work by the World Food Programme (WFP) to operate these high altitude airdrops. These are from very high in the sky but they actually work with precision. We are just about to launch an air bridge into Qamishli from Damascus. The reason for this is that we have run out of meaningful means to reach people over land. This is in the Al Hasakeh governorate in the north-eastern corner of Syria. We are not able to move or operate over land any delivery of humanitarian assistance and hence our resort to this last measure, this last costly measure, and that is an air bridge that would bring life-saving assistance to a very large number of people in that corner. This also leaves the recently-much-deliberated-upon option of delivering through air to besieged areas. We have made a request in this regard early this month, if we are not able to reach the besieged locations which had either been rejected or partially, or conditionally approved. We said if we can’t reach them by land, we would want to reach them by helicopter, another costly undertaking, but a means of delivery. Luckily, through the passing period in June we have been able to reach all those locations over land, that is Darayya, Douma and Mouadhimiyeh, in rural Damascus, and Al-Waer in Homs. The preference is for land deliveries. Why? Apart from the cost implications (it is much more cost effective), it is also possible for us to deliver to the entire population at once. It took the WFP probably two months to deliver a one-month supply of food to 110,000 people, whereas if we had the opportunity to reach this population over land, we would have done it in one operation, probably maximum in three days, because it would be a very huge convoy to move, but it would have been possible to cater for all in three days, as opposed to two months. That gives you immediately the fact that all options are on the table, but we also – and I spoke earlier about the resource constraints- we are funded at 20 percent, and this is June. Where we can reach people through the most cost-effective and comprehensive way, we will do it, and that’s the land option, where we have to resort to other measures such as the airdrops in Deir Ez-Zor, or the air bridge in Qamishli, or possibly other modes of air delivery, we will have to resort to it. That request was not approved but what we were able to do was to reach the same locations through land delivery, and that is for us the bottom line.