DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Angry locals of Tal Aswad village, backed by Syrian army troops, blocked a U.S. convoy from advancing in Syria’s northeastern city of Qamishli.
Syria’s official news agency SANA said that residents of the village of Tal Aswad in the countryside of Qamishli City in Hasakah province blocked a U.S. convoy from advancing in the region and forced it to retreat.
SANA cited local sources as saying that the convoy was made up of four military vehicles that tried to cross into a checkpoint, but was forced to retreat from where it had come from.
The residents of the villages nearby, backed by the army troops, blocked the convoy from moving forward, hurling rocks at the vehicles and chanting slogans against the U.S. occupation of parts of Syrian territory.
In another development, the Damascus government and its allies have criticized a UN call for the extension of the cross-border aid mechanism in Syria, saying it hampers the government’s efforts to restore stability in the war-torn country.
During the UN Security Council’s monthly meeting on Syria on Monday, the Arab country’s permanent representative to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, was backed by envoys from Russia, China, and Iran in calling for respect his country’s sovereignty.
“The [Syrian] government is enhancing its efforts to restore security and stability and overcome the repercussions of the crisis through reconciliation and work to repair the infrastructure,” Sabbagh said, according to an official transcript of the meeting.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for the Security Council to extend its authorization of cross-border aid into northwest Syria by a year.
President Bashar al-Assad’s government has repeatedly denounced the cross-border mechanism as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a tool to advance Western agendas in the country. Moscow and Beijing have generally agreed. They argue that aid to opposition-held territories should instead be routed “cross-line” from Damascus.
The UN resolution allowing aid deliveries across the Syrian-Turkish border at Bab al-Hawa has been in effect since 2014.