Deputy Foreign Minister: “Georgia cooperates with UN to find ways to help Aleppo”

The Government of Georgia is communicating with the United Nations (UN) to find ways to provide humanitarian aid for people in Syria's city Aleppo, says a Foreign Ministry official.

Today Georgia’s Deputy Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani spoke about what Georgia was doing to ease the humanitarian crisis in besieged Aleppo.

The entire international community is united to somehow alleviate the hard situation for people in Aleppo. Georgia is a member of the international community and we stand by the UN and other international organisations [to help the people of Aleppo],” Zalkaliani said.

At the moment we are communicating with the UN; we will have meetings and we will discuss and plan how Georgia, within its capacity, can provide humanitarian aid for [the people in Aleppo].”

When asked how much time this could possibly take, Zalkaliani said he was scheduled to have a meeting with a UN representative today. He noted it was a working process so no details were established yet.

Zalkaliani’s statement about Aleppo came one day after Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said the Georgian Government wanted to provide humanitarian aid - through the help of the UN office - for children in Syria.

The Prime Minister said he wanted "to somehow manage” this but the question was "how”.

Meanwhile Zalkaliani today said Georgia was involved in all discussions that had taken place within the UN regarding Syria. These discussions were held in two formats; at the Human Rights Commission and General Assembly.

Since we are not member of the Security Council, we, of course, haven’t participated in the works carried out by this Council but we have supported all the resolutions and initiatives that the UN has adopted regarding Syria,” Zalkaliani said.

The Georgian official added at three separate plenary sessions of the UN Human Rights Commission, which Georgia has been a member of since 2016, a Georgian representative delivered a speech in which he joined the international community’s request regarding an immediate ceasefire in Aleppo and asked for international organisations to be allowed to have an access to the area.