President, it has been seven years since this Authorities unanimously adopted resolution 2254. The principles set out in this resolution remain the only means for achieving a sustainable means to fix the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Syria. Second, with humanitarian needs growing each year, the Assad regime continues to profit from the production and trafficking of narcotics, most conspicuously captagon – which provides billions of dollars annually to the regime. Turning the country into a ‘narco-state’ harms the people of Syria and adds to regional instability. We urge partners within the international community to condemn this clearly and to keep on supporting those affected by the captagon trade. I am going to highlight three points: Initial, the United Kingdom welcomes the current adoption of resolution 2672 to continue the delivery of life-saving aid to an incredible number of Syrians in need. But let’s be clear – 6 months is not a sufficient schedule within which humanitarians may effectively operate and we heard that again today. The particular humanitarian community have regularly warned us that smaller mandate renewals force EL agencies and NGOs to direct much of their work to contingency planning. That will uncertainty limits their capacity to help those in require. Meanwhile, the humanitarian circumstance continues to deteriorate with fifteen. 3 million Syrians today in desperate need of humanitarian aid. We have heard from Russia that they had been taking steps to renew the particular Constitutional Committee. But we have seen no progress. We all urge Russia to stop holding on what ought to be a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process. It is time to move away from conversations of process for the Constitutional Committee and begin to tackle substance. Third, all of us applaud Special Envoy Pedersen’s efforts to continue engagement with Damascus, as well as countries in the region and beyond. The UK stands ready to support a politics process in line with resolution 2254. We must guard against any process that does not deliver over the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and which will not really contribute to a lasting plus sustainable peace. Let me start by again thanking Particular Envoy Pedersen and OCHA Deputy Director Mudawi for their powerful briefings today.
