Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The reason this is so complicated is that north-west area is essentially Idlib province. The strategy within Syria in terms of the conflict there has essentially been to push the resistance and opposition to the regime in Syria into the north-west.

Some of those who support the Assad regime see aid flowing in a structured way from Turkey into north-west Syria essentially as feeding the resistance and prolonging the war and so the politics and the military decisions around aid. Some of them would also accuse that crossing of facilitating weapons as well as aid. I have to say from what I saw there - we were fairly robust in our conversations with the UN agencies that were there - that there is a very transparent process of ensuring that what should be crossing in to Idlib for humanitarian reasons is what is crossing in. The focus now has to be to try to manage the politics of this in the context of the politics of Syria on the UN Security Council, which is about as divisive as it gets, to try to find a way of ensuring this crossing stays open. I believe it can be done but it will not be easy.

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