Volodymyr Zelensky “ready to provide the necessary aid” to Turkey; Anne Hidalgo opposed to Russian athletes at the 2024 Olympics

by time news

Zelensky announced that his country was “ready to provide the necessary assistance” to Turkey to help “overcome the consequences” of a devastating earthquake

Even war-torn Ukraine, nearly a year after the Russian invasion, has offered to mobilize rescue workers to the Turkish regions affected by Monday’s violent earthquakes. President Volodymyr Zelensky himself announced that his country was “ready to provide the necessary assistance”.

kyiv is seeking to heal its relations with Ankara, which has provided it with drones and is in a position to mediate with Moscow. But the Ukrainian leader did not bother to mention Syria, one of the few states to have so far supported the Russian invasion unleashed by the head of the Kremlin, who is also the main protector of dictator Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus.

kyiv’s reaction proves it: things are more complicated for Syria, a country torn apart by twelve years of civil war, and whose leaders have been subject to international sanctions since the start of the conflict in 2011. “The quake-affected regions of northwestern Syria have already been devastated by civil war,” says a humanitarian from the association Handicap International present on the spot.

Apart from the Aleppo region, most of the areas hit escape the authority of Damascus and are controlled, from west to east, by jihadist forces (Idlib), Turkish auxiliaries or Kurds. This can make any foreign assistance operation complex, although humanitarian aid in rebel areas usually arrives through the Turkish border. The number of crossing points for this assistance, de facto escaping the regime, was reduced from four to one, as the conflict progressed, under pressure from Russia.

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