August 2021 Monthly Forecast 1 Overview Overview 1 In Hindsight: Getting Across the Line on In August, India will have the presidency of the meetings on the political and humanitarian situa- Syria’s Cross-Border Security Council. Most meetings are expected to tions and on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Mechanism be in person this month. Other Middle East issues on the programme of 4 Status Update since our India has chosen to convene two signature work this month are expected to be: July Forecast events during its presidency. One is a high-level • Lebanon, a meeting on the UN Interim Force 6 UN Peacekeeping videoconference (VTC) open debate on maritime in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the renewal of 7 Syria security. Narendra Modi, India’s prime minis- UNIFIL’s mandate; ter, will chair the meeting. Maria Luiza Ribeiro • Yemen, the monthly meeting on developments; 8 Maritime Security Viotti, the Secretary-General’s Chef de Cabinet, • “The situation in the Middle East, including 9 Lebanon and Ghada Fathi Waly, Executive Director of the Palestinian question”, the monthly meet- 11 Somalia the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), ing; and 12 Counter-Terrorism are expected to brief the Council. A presidential • Iraq, a meeting on the most recent devel- statement is an expected outcome. opments and the Secretary-General’s two 14 Yemen India is also planning to hold a ministerial-lev- upcoming reports concerning the UN Assis- 15 Iraq el open debate on “Technology and Peacekeep- tance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and missing 16 DPRK (North Korea) ing”. India’s Minister of External Affairs, Sub- Kuwaiti property and missing third party and 18 Mali rahmanyam Jaishankar, will chair the debate. Kuwaiti nationals. Under-Secretaries-General for Peace Operations African issues that the Council expects to and Operational Support, Jean-Pierre Lacroix address in August are: and Atul Khare, respectively, are expected to • Somalia, a meeting on the UN Assistance Mis- brief. A presidential statement is an anticipated sion in Somalia (UNSOM) and the renewal of outcome. India may also pursue a resolution on the UNSOM mandate; and the protection of peacekeepers during the month. • Mali, the renewal of the Mali asset freeze and The Council will meet to discuss the Secre- travel ban sanctions and the mandate of the tary-General’s 13th strategic-level report on the Mali Sanctions Committee’s Panel of Experts, threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the as well as consideration of the Secretary-Gener- Levant (ISIL or Da’esh) in August. India’s Minis- al’s 15 July report with recommendations on the ter of External Affairs, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, force level of the UN Multidimensional Integrat- is expected to chair the meeting. Under-Secre- ed Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). tary-General Vladimir Voronkov, the head of the The quarterly briefing by the chair of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), and 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee is also antic- Assistant Secretary-General Michèle Coninsx, ipated in August. the Executive Director of the Counter-Terrorism The Council will continue to follow develop- Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), are ments in Ethiopia (Tigray), Haiti and Myanmar expected to brief. closely during the month. Meetings on these The Council is expected to hold its monthly and other issues are possible. In Hindsight: Getting Across the Line on Syria’s 30 July 2021 This report is available online at Cross-Border Mechanism securitycouncilreport.org. For daily insights by SCR on evolving Security Council actions please subscribe to our “What’s In Blue” On 9 July, in an astonishing show of unity on a humanitarian assistance into Syria’s northwest. series at securitycouncilreport.org or follow @SCRtweets on Twitter. perennially contentious issue, the Council unani- Not since the adoption of resolution 2332 in mously adopted resolution 2585, re-authoris- December 2016 had the Council reached consen- ing the cross-border mechanism to deliver sus on the cross-border humanitarian aid delivery Security Council Report Monthly Forecast August 2021 securitycouncilreport.org 1 In Hindsight: Getting Across the Line mechanism for Syria. And, unlike in December 2019, January 2020 outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion. The P5’s posi- and again in July 2020, the Council voted only on one draft text. tions were well-known. The Council’s ten elected members, whose While resolution 2585 offered the rarest of encouraging signs collective position was for keeping the cross-border mechanism open in the Council chamber on Syria, the unanimous adoption belied for another 12 months, had, however, expressed differing views on a difficult two weeks of negotiations. How the Council overcame the issue of sanctions and the role of cross-line deliveries. The co- its divisions to adopt this resolution is a classic diplomatic tale of penholders—Ireland and Norway, both fresh to the Council in compromise and constructive ambiguity. As one Council member 2021—aimed to sort out these differences, creating space for a deal noted privately, “every country got something it wanted in the end”. while maintaining a position that would hold the elected members But rifts may lie ahead: resolution 2585 also contains elements that together. Council members had fought against, sometimes vigorously. Against this backdrop, will the agreement allow the Council to put the acri- Negotiations Begin mony on the cross-border mechanism behind it and find new ways On 25 June, the co-penholders circulated a zero draft of their to work together on Syria? The text, and the process by which the resolution. One round of in-person negotiations among Council Council agreed on it, may offer some clues. experts took place on 30 June. The co-penholders’ zero draft was (For a detailed account of the background on the cross-border nearly identical to resolution 2533 of 2020—which re-authorised mechanism and the events surrounding last year’s adoption, please one border crossing (Bab al-Hawa) for 12 months—but included see our “In Hindsight” from the August 2020 Forecast, titled: “Six the authorisation of Al Yarubiyah, one of the four border crossings Days, Five Resolutions, One Border Crossing”.) originally authorised by the Council. The P3, along with Estonia, reiterated their position that the resolution should authorise three Lines Drawn border crossings (Bab al-Hawa, Al Yarubiyah and Bab al-Salam) for From the moment the Council renewed the cross-border mechanism a period of 12 months, while China, India and Russia raised con- with the adoption of resolution 2533 in July 2020, speculation about cerns that the zero draft referred neither to the need for increased its future was rife. Month after month, the Council’s regular ses- cross-line deliveries nor the adverse humanitarian effects of unilat- sions on the humanitarian situation in Syria painted an increasingly eral sanctions. Earlier that day, Russia’s permanent representative, dire picture. Council members remained rooted in their diverging Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, had described reopening the closed positions, notably over the impact of cross-line delivery of aid and cross-border points as “really a non-starter”. of sanctions, the duration of the cross-border mechanism and the A number of Council members privately characterised the days number of border crossings necessary to meet Syria’s humanitarian between the 30 June informal reading of the draft text and 6 July as needs, and the seemingly peripheral issue of early recovery funds. the proverbial calm before the storm. On 6 July, the Council held Russia and China have consistently argued that sanctions against closed consultations on Syria’s humanitarian situation, following Syria should be lifted, saying that they exacerbate the country’s wors- which the co-penholders placed their unchanged zero draft under ening economic conditions. They maintained that improvements silence until 7 July. Russia did not explicitly address the contents were needed in cross-line deliveries—humanitarian assistance that of the text or offer revisions, but China broke silence, saying that it crosses a domestic frontline from Syrian government-held areas could not accept an additional border crossing and calling for the into areas outside government control. These deliveries, they argued, text to include language on the expansion of cross-line deliveries and would be sufficient, obviating the need for assistance to flow into the adverse effects of unilateral sanctions. Syria’s northwest from Turkey. With the clock ticking (the mandate was set to expire on 10 July) Secretary-General António Guterres told the Council on 23 June and Russia refusing to formally engage on the text, the co-penhold- that “failure to extend the Council’s authorization would have dev- ers removed the language re-authorising the Al Yarubiyah crossing astating consequences”. While highlighting the importance of main- but made no further textual changes. They then placed the updated taining and expanding both cross-border and cross-line deliveries, draft under silence until 10 am on 8 July. China maintained its posi- the Secretary-General said that member states “must recognize that tion from the previous day. Nonetheless, the co-penholders decided [cross-line deliveries] will never be able to replace cross-border assis- to put the draft text in blue during the afternoon of 8 July, with the tance at the present levels”. In addition, the P3 (France, the United vote scheduled for 9 July. Kingdom and the United