UNITED NATIONS: Syria has warned the UN Security Council that it would consider any enforced cross-border delivery of humanitarian aid without prior agreement from Damascus as an "attack" on the state.
The claim was made in a June 18 letter signed by Syrian and Arab lawyers and sent by the Syrian mission to the UN. It warned that the state must give consent for imports of any humanitarian aid.
It comes as Western powers are working towards a new Security Council resolution that would guarantee the delivery of aid.
More than 3.5 million Syrians have "unpredictable and woefully inadequate" access to humanitarian assistance, including 241,000 living in besieged areas, UN statistics show.
An estimated 160,000 people have been killed in the conflict. "Importing aid in coordination with terrorist organizations and without consultation with the Syrian state would amount to an attack on the Syrian state," said the letter.
It claimed it could be used as a "pretext for aggression."Syria opposes the delivery of cross-border aid that would send supplies directly to areas held by the armed opposition in its more than three-year brutal civil war.
Talks have been going on for weeks among Council members on a draft resolution that would enforce humanitarian aid deliveries across the Jordanian, Iraqi and Turkish borders into Syria.
Russia, president of the Council in June, said it had proposed an "elegant innovative formula" that ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Western partners have not yet accepted.
Australian ambassador Gary Quinlan said the Russian proposal was "not good enough" and potentially counterproductive.
"We need to make sure it works on the ground and generates greater access but we are not convinced it is the case," he told reporters.
Russia has already vetoed four Security Council resolutions on the Syrian conflict, protecting its close ally Damascus, and the impasse has paralyzed international response to the catastrophe.
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