France presses for Syria aid corridors at UN

France says it wants the UN Security Council to set up humanitarian corridors in Syria to alleviate civilian suffering and that it is negotiating with Russia on a new UN resolution on the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country, which has already joined China in vetoing two Security Council resolutions on Syria, could not support using the UN body to "help legitimise" regime change in Damascus.

Paris suggested in November creating a safe passage for relief organisations, with Syrian approval or an international mandate, to get food and medicine to civilians caught up in the 11-month-old struggle to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

"The idea of humanitarian corridors that I previously proposed, to allow NGOs to reach the zones where there are scandalous massacres, should be discussed at the Security Council," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told France Info radio.

Lavrov was non-committal when asked whether Russia support such a plan. "It's impossible to answer such questions without having language (details) in your hands," he told reporters.

On Feb. 4, Russia and China blocked a draft Security Council resolution supporting an Arab League call for Assad to step aside as part of a transition to democracy, provoking strong criticism from Western and Arab states pushing for the measure.

Since then, violence has intensified, with Syrian forces attacking opposition strongholds. On Wednesday troops backed by armoured personnel carriers stormed a Damascus suburb.

Under the French plan, humanitarian corridors would link Syrian population centres to the frontiers of Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.

Juppe has said the zone could be protected by armed "observers", but has ruled out direct military intervention.

A French diplomatic source said a UN resolution would be needed to create the corridors, but who would protect it, be it peacekeepers or unarmed observers, was still to be assessed. Financing of such an operation would depend on its form.

Juppe, who meets Lavrov in Vienna on Thursday, may struggle to get the idea off the ground given Moscow's reticence.

"In our contacts with the Russians, including this morning in Moscow, we didn't sense any particular give in the Russian position. But obviously we will be looking at what the possibilities are," a senior Western diplomat said.

Juppe met a dozen aid and human rights groups on Tuesday to discuss what they needed to provide support to besieged Syrians.

"There is a humanitarian crisis developing because of the political repression," said Antoine Bernard, executive director at the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, who attended the meeting with Juppe. "We are seeing a serious problem with access to food, potable water and medicine as well as denying healthcare to repress."

After the talks Paris announced a 1 million euro fund for aid agencies involved with Syria and said it would propose a similar one at an international level when a "Friends of Syria" contact group meets in Tunisia on Feb. 24.

Bernard said the French proposal followed an Arab League resolution on Sunday which called for Arab and international plans for humanitarian action. Among these, he said, was a proposal from Jordan for a refugee camp on its border with Syria.