The UN Security Council has unanimously voted in favour of sending observers to the Syrian city of Alepo as thousands more people are evacuated from the last rebel enclave there. They are supposed to monitor the treatment of civilians being taken out through pro-government areas. Our correspondent at UN headquarter is in New York.

There are already slightly over 100 UN staff in the government controlled part of Alepo, and Stephen O’Brien who is the head of the UN’s humanitarian office basically put out an statement saying that they stand ready to scale up their presence in the city in that that can be done immediately. But only if the parties live up to this resolution and their most basic legal obligations. So really the key here is access from the Syrian government. And the spokesperson for the Secretary General also mentioned that today. He says the key issue here is what it’s always been. It’s access. The UN has been calling for international monitors to be sent to those besieged areas. And so now with this resolution, the UN is hoping that that will give them the kind of wait they need to get access they have been requesting from the Syrian government.

Yeah, interesting that the Syrian ambassador’s response was to call it crafty and vague.

I guess pressure from Russia will prove key here.

Absolutely, and the American ambassador Samantha Power said that she wasn’t just saying that this was an necessity for the Syrian government, but also for the Russian federation who voted along with the other 14 members of the council for this resolution. We heard the Syrian ambassador Bashar Ja’afari questioned the motivations of the French and other western powers who put through this resolution who basically said that they were trying to get their foreign intelligence officers out of eastern Alepo and that this wasn’t in fact to help the humanitarian situation on the ground. Now of course other western nations would completely dispute that and say that there are no monitors in eastern Alepo and there needs to be the eyes and ears of the international community and to make sure that civilians are safely exiting.

And very briefly does this also cover Idlib where there are rebel besieged areas?

This resolution, and I did asked this of a senior security council diplomat. It is just Alepo. So that if what people fear Idlib becomes the next Alepo where rebels and civilians are headed now, there would need to be another resolution.

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