UN aid set to resume to NW Syria after ‘understanding’ with Damascus

The United Nations is set to resume aid deliveries into rebel-held northwestern Syria via a crossing that has been a lifeline for the region, after aid workers said Damascus appeared to loosen terms that had led to a weeks-long pause.
The aid deliveries from Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa crossing stopped in July when Western powers and the Syrian government’s main ally Russia failed to agree on extending a U.N. Security Council mandate for the operation. Syria then gave unilateral approval – but on terms which the U.N. rejected as unacceptable.
After weeks of diplomacy, a Syrian government letter sent to the United Nations this week and seen by Reuters did not mention the rejected conditions. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed an “understanding” with Damascus on using the Bab al-Hawa crossing for six months, his Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said on Tuesday.
The northwest is the last major bastion of rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad in the 12-year-long Syrian war, and millions of people there depend on U.N. aid.