Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

The plan is for the airdrops to be made by the World Food Programme using contracted civilian aircraft. The World Food Programme is already making food airdrops into Deir ez-Zor, the isolated city in the east of Syria, and it has done so successfully without loss to those aircraft. Clearly there are operational aspects that members of the ISSG—particularly the Americans and Russians—are now working through, and we will seek undertakings from the regime. We also know that the Russians have, let us say, significant influence over the operation of the regime’s air defence system, and we expect all members of the ISSG to do everything in their power to ensure that those airdrops are successful and carried out without undue risk to the aircrew.