US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday demanded aid workers be granted unhindered access to war-torn Syria, calling on the UN Security Council to scale up humanitarian assistance provided to a population whose lives depend on it. 

“Stop making humanitarian assistance on which millions of Syrians’ lives depend a political issue,” Blinken said, pressing the 15-member council to “stop enabling the obstruction of aid.”

Blinken’s comments, which he delivered while chairing a virtual meeting of the Security Council, came ahead of a looming vote that could see the Syrian regime’s patrons, Russia and China, further deprive the country of outside aid at a time when the United Nations says an estimated 13.4 million people — two in every three Syrians — are in need. 

Because of President Bashar al-Assad's well documented history of weaponizing food aid, the Security Council adopted a resolution in 2014 that allowed UN agencies and their partners to bypass the government and deliver aid through four border crossings — two in Turkey, one in Jordan and one in Iraq.