France warned Russia on Thursday that if humanitarian aid is allowed only across the internal Syrian conflict line and not from neighbouring countries, Western countries that provide almost all the funding will stop delivering it.

French UN Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière, who chairs the Security Council, told a press conference that Syrians in the rebel-controlled northwest and the mainly Kurdish-controlled northeast need humanitarian aid, which cannot be adequately delivered across conflict lines because of the current situation in the country.

He spoke as the Council began negotiations on a draft resolution that would allow for the resumption of aid deliveries through the Turkish Bab al-Hawa border crossing to Idlib in north-western Syria and the reopening of the Iraqi Al-Yaroubiya border crossing in north-eastern Syria, which was closed in January 2020 under pressure from Syria’s closest ally Russia.

The mandate authorizing aid through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing expires on 10 July, and the UN, the US, Europe and others are heavily pressuring Russia. They warn of serious humanitarian consequences for more than a million Syrians if all border crossings are closed.

“In the end facts are facts,” De Rivière said, “and if you close the cross-border mechanism… the northwest of Syria will suffer a reduction of 50% of humanitarian relief.”

He said that “cross-line doesn’t work”, referring to the fact that the Syrian government has rejected 50% of the requests for border crossings this year.

“As I said repeatedly, 92% of humanitarian relief to Syria is provided by European Union, U.S., Canada, Japan basically,” the French ambassador said. “This is Western money, and nobody should expect this money to be reallocated through cross-line which does not work.”

De Rivière said, “This is a hard choice to make, and we hope to be able to continue to finance humanitarian relief in Syria.”

The Security Council approved four border crossings when the aid effort began in 2014, three years after the conflict in Syria began. In January 2020, Russia used its veto power in the Council to initially limit aid deliveries to two border crossings in the country’s northwest, and last July Russia suspended the second crossing, leaving Bab al-Hawa as the only border crossing.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Western donors of “blackmailing” Moscow by threatening to cut off humanitarian aid to Syria if the Bab al-Hawa mandate is not renewed.

“We consider it is important to resist such approaches,” Lavrov said in a recent oral statement to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, obtained by The Associated Press last week. “We believe that further concessions to the Americans and Europeans under the pressure of financial threats will undermine the credibility of the United Nations, its Charter and the Security Council’s resolutions.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on Wednesday described a proposal to reopen the al-Jarubiyah border crossing in northeastern Iraq as “a non-starter”. He also did not say whether Russia would allow aid to pass through Bab al-Hawa or veto a move to block the crossing, which would prevent supplies from crossing. “We continue consulting on the issue” – he said.

Nebenzia reiterated Russia’s criticism of cross-border aid and said humanitarian aid should be delivered across the borders of the Syrian conflict to strengthen the Syrian government’s sovereignty over the entire country.

He reiterated Lavrov’s criticism of the April 2020 effort to block a convoy of the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent that was en route from the Syrian capital Damascus to Idlib. The Russian minister accused Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the strongest militant group in Idlib, of not allowing goods to cross the border “with the connivance” of Turkey.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who recently visited the Bab al-Hawah border crossing, expressed disappointment on Friday that the draft resolution did not provide for the delivery of aid through three border crossings, including another crossing in northwestern Turkey, Bab al-Salam, which was closed last July.

“Millions of Syrians are struggling, and without urgent action, millions more will be cut off from food, clean water, medicine and COVID-19 vaccines,” she said.

Nebenzia said the Syrian government wanted to cut cross-border supplies and rejected claims that there was no alternative.

Cross-border aid was approved in 2014 “in special circumstances when there was no access to many parts of Syria,” he said. “But, of course, today it is now an outdated operation and eventually it will be closed,” he said.

Mr Nebenzia said a “disaster,” had been predicted when al-Jaroubiya in the northeast was closed, “but today facts on the ground confirm, and the U.N. says that they have increased humanitarian assistance to the northeast … through the cooperation with the Syrian government.”

The UN and Western countries say there is not enough aid, including medicines and vaccines, to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the northeast.