Bring Syria out of the cold, says Saudi Arabia while the regime uses the earthquake

When the earthquake shook Abdulkafi Alhamdo's house northwest of Aleppo, the first question of the little daughter of the English teacher was: "Assad bombs us again?"

The seven -year -old Lamar survived the siege of Aleppo, and Mr. Alhamdo, 37, had previously shared a video of the frightened child who reacted to the sound of air raids.

While President Bashar al Assad's armed forces did not bomb this time the northwestern Syria controlled by the opposition, the Syrian leader exploits the aftermath of this devastating earthquake to influence the areas controlled by the opposition and to strive for normalization with the Arabic neighbors.

and the trick could work, because on Sunday Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister claimed that the Arab world was ready to accept a new approach to the Syrian dictator.

"You will see that not only in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), but in the Arab world a consensus grows that the status quo is not practical," said Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud at the Munich Security Conference.

"Assad is the biggest beneficiary of what happened," Alhamdo told The Telegraph on a phone call from his village Darat Izza. It was shown that he is able to make decisions for all of Syria, including areas that are not under the control of the regime. ”

After almost 12 years of civil war, President Assad presides a broken residual state who is in an insecure relaxation, while the Kurdish armed forces control the northeastern third of the country. Although Russian and Iranian support has secured his survival, it remains an international output.

Although Arab states that previously supported the rebels have recognized in recent years that Mr. Assad will remain here, a process seems to be accelerated in response to the earthquake, in which 5,800 people were killed in Syria.

Saudi Arabia was once the main financier of the Syrian rebels and delivered huge amounts of weapons and ammunition to various groups that fought for Mr. Assad's fall, but this week Saudi aircraft with relief goods landed for the first time in over a decade in Aleppo, which was controlled by the government. The VAE, which reopened their message in Damascus in 2018, sent 41 aircraft loads.

After visiting the Jordan Foreign Minister and calling from Egypt and Bahrain, Mr. Assad thanked his “Arabic brothers” for their support and help.

But the approximately four million Syrians who live in the worst affected areas - Syria's last enclave in the northwest, which Syria's last of rebels - could not notice after the vague view of cross -line help from regime areas had never occurred.

Instead, they are up to them, said Mr. Alhamdo, who also works as an activist and journalist. "I heard voices among the ruins that asked for us to help them with life, but we couldn't help them because there was no equipment," he said.

On Sunday, the United Nations Aid, Martin Griffiths, said on Twitter that "we have so far let the people in northwestern Syria down". Since then, a little more than 143 truck loads have come to the region with UN aid.

In the meantime, "trucks drove through dozens of trucks every day, which did not transport relief goods, but the corpses of Syrians who died in Turkey," said Mr. Alhamdo.

Since the UN help can only be obtained with the consent of Damascus or via a resolution of the Security Council to Syria, the Damascus supporter Russia has made its veto in recent years to restrict the help that comes in rebel area to a single border crossing from Turkey near Bab al-Hawa.

In view of the enormous, uncovered humanitarian needs in northwestern Syria, the UN asked for Mr. Assad's consent to use two further transitions for a period of three months. This led to delays in providing help and gave Mr. Assad new influence on the region, said Mr. Alhamdo.

"The UN politicized the disaster, it used the earthquake to give Assad more authority about areas that are not under his control," he said. "Now we understand whenever Assad wants to kill us with poverty and hunger, he can tell the UN that she should not give these people to these people, and they will do it."

The United States are also concerned about this option and urge a resolution of the Security Council to approved the help.

"We are not entirely confident that Mr. Assad will stick to it [AGREEMENT TO ALLOW in AID] that he could act in a capricious way here," said the spokesman for the White House, John Kirby.

"We believe that only a resolution of the UN Security Council that codes this agreement can ensure that the Assad regime does not break its word."

Although Western sanctions do not apply to humanitarian aid, Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad called for the cancellation of all "one -sided forced measures" on Monday

Western governments said that their support for Syria is being managed via the UN and NGOs. "Our political approach does not change and in contrast to Bashar al-Assad we work in favor of the Syrian population," said the deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Francois Delmas, on Thursday.

The FCDO announced a package of £ 25 million of new foreign aid for Turkey and Syria and said that it would support the work of the United Nations and the aid organizations on site in Syria.

But Mr. Alhamdo said many in northwestern Syria had lost confidence in the UN.

"The UN failed to help the Syrians," he said.

"They were waiting for the approval of our murderer to help us, the murderer who has been destroying us for 12 years, who besieged me in Aleppo, who killed many of my friends and loved ones, destroyed houses, killed my students."