Damascus has renewed a permit that allows UN aid to be transported from Turkey to areas in the country's north-west held by forces opposing President Bashar Al Assad.
Millions of people live in rebel-held areas of north-western Syria and rely on aid to survive after the economy was devastated by the civil war.
But the move to allow UN aid into these areas will have limited effect, as Turkey has replaced the United Nations as the main humanitarian provider in the region, a UN humanitarian official and a member of an NGO working in Syria told The National.
The extension was announced by Syria's UN ambassador Koussay Aldahhak after his government relayed it to the UN on Saturday.
"The Syrian government has decided to renew the permission" for three months, he said on X, previously Twitter.
UN aid deliveries can continue through the Bab Al Salam and Al Raee crossings, Mr Aldahhak said.
The crossings are near the Turkish cities of Killis and Gaziantep. The Syrian side of the border is controlled by the Syrian National Army, a Turkish proxy.
The SNA gained control of parts of the north of Aleppo province near the border after Turkey launched an offensive to dislodge Kurdish fighters in 2016, before expanding its control with Turkish support to the neighbouring Afrin area of the province in 2018.
Turkey has since consolidated its control and influence over the area through building schools, hospitals and other infrastructure, including an industrial zone. The Turkish government wants Syrian refugees on its side of the border to return to their homeland and has been pressuring them to move to SNA-controlled areas.
Some of the aid that comes through the Turkish border crossings will be transported by UN-approved local organisations to the neighbouring Idlib province, the owner of a fleet of lorries in the north-west told The National. Idlib is controlled largely by rebel groups aligned with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a coalition of anti-regime militant groups.
There are an estimated 4.4 million people living in these two rebel-held areas. Many of them face widespread poverty and are dependent on aid and remittance from relatives living abroad.
The delivery of aid has been influenced by the various parties in the struggle for control of Syria.
Alongside Turkey, the US, Iran and Russia have all carved out zones of influence or control in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.
In July last year, disagreements between the US and Russia ended a UN Security Council arrangement under which aid was delivered to the north-west without any input from the government in Damascus.
Moscow, which alongside Tehran backed Mr Al Assad in the war, blocked the arrangement in support of its ally. As a result, Damascus gained the final decision on whether to allow the cross-border aid shipments.
But the region is now less dependent on UN aid due to the agency cutting the amount, mainly for budgetary reasons, as well as increased aid and trade flows from Turkey, said the humanitarian sources and residents who spoke to The National.
Instead, the move is seen largely as symbolic and driven by Moscow.
One UN aid official, who did not want to be named, told The National Russia has told Mr Al Assad not to prevent aid deliveries from Turkey and to preserve Moscow’s relations with Ankara.
“If it was up to Assad he would have stopped the aid last year,” the official said.
Turkey and Russia, which form the core of the so-called Astana process on Syria, almost came to war in north-western Syria in early 2020.
The two countries have since reached an equilibrium that kept Turkey’s militia allies in control of the area but limited their scope for territorial gains at the expense of the regime.
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Du Football Champions
The fourth season of du Football Champions was launched at Gitex on Wednesday alongside the Middle East’s first sports-tech scouting platform.“du Talents”, which enables aspiring footballers to upload their profiles and highlights reels and communicate directly with coaches, is designed to extend the reach of the programme, which has already attracted more than 21,500 players in its first three years.
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