Assad may consider more border crossings for Syria quake aid: WHO

Damascus: The WHO chief said on Sunday that President Bashar al-Assad had voiced openness to more border crossings for aid to be brought to quake victims in rebel-held northwestern Syria.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters he had met with the Syrian president in Damascus on Sunday afternoon to discuss the response to the devastating earthquake which has killed more than 33,000 people across Syria and Turkey.

Rebel-held areas in northwestern Syria, which has been ravaged by more than a decade of civil war, are in a particularly dire situation.

They cannot receive aid from government-held parts of Syria without Damascus's authorisation, and the single border crossing open to shuttle aid from Turkey saw operations damaged in the quake.

Aid began trickling through the border crossing again on Thursday, but there have been mounting calls to open more crossings to speed up the aid delivery.

"This afternoon I met with His Excellency President Assad, who indicated he was open to considering additional cross-border access points for this emergency," Tedros told a virtual press conference from the Syrian capital.

He also hailed the "recent blanket approval by the government of Syria for the UN for cross-line conveys" to bring aid into the rebel-held northwest.

While Damascus had given the all-clear for cross-line aid convoys to go ahead from government-held areas, Tedros said the WHO was still waiting for the green light from the rebel-held areas before going in.

"We're on standby" he said.

"We can move anytime now to the cross-line to the northwest, based on the blanket permit we have... from this side. We are waiting now to hear from the other side as well," he said.

"When we get that, we will cross to the northwest."