LONDON, August 14. /TASS/. The British government is not ready to join the international community’s efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Syria, the Russian embassy in London said in a statement.
"Our contacts at the FCO [the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom - TASS] clearly show that the UK government, unfortunately, is not ready to change its position and join the international efforts aimed at providing assistance for the people of Syria," the statement reads. "We do not see any practical steps by the official London in this direction, although, in our opinion, now is just the right time to act. However, British authorities do not go beyond expressing concerns over the Syrian population’s sufferings," the embassy added.
"We also believe there is urgent need to lift the EU sanctions against Syria. They are a hard burden on all Syrians, preventing them from getting out of the economic crisis and focusing on rebuilding their lives," the embassy’s press officer noted.
"In the meantime, the Syrian government has started restoring infrastructure in the provinces of Aleppo, Damascus and Hama. Russian humanitarian aid is delivered on regular basis, with the total amount already close to 3,000 tonnes. In July, the joint Russia-France initiative for providing relief to the population in Eastern Ghouta was successfully implemented," the statement says.
According to the Russian embassy, "Syrian refugees continue to return to their homeland. More than 236,000 of them have been repatriated since the end of September 2015 (including 6,700 that came from Lebanon in the course of last month only). 1.7 million Syrians have already expressed their will to return from nine countries (Lebanon, Turkey, Germany, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Denmark, Brazil, Austria)."
"We call on the British government to finally replace its theoretical speculations by concrete actions and join international efforts aimed at reconstructing Syria. This would be the best testimony to the commitment of the UK to help Syrian people bring their lives back to normal," the embassy concluded.
