Ban demand unconditional humanitarian access to Syria

UN leader Ban Ki-moon Friday demanded that Syria unconditionally let in humanitarian aid and said the government was afraid to grant the UN emergency aid chief access to the country.The Syrian authorities must open without any preconditions to humanitarian communities, Ban said.Speaking as reports emerged of Red Cross convoys being kept out of the protest city of Homs, Ban said the images coming out of Syria were atrocious.It is totally unacceptable, intolerable. How as a human being can you bear... this situation, Ban told a press briefing at the UN headquarters.Syria has refused to let UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos into the country, but Ban said the United Nations still hoped to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to allow her entry to make an aid assessment.Why are they afraid of receiving the head of UN humanitarian department? We are ready to mobilize on this, we do not have access. So that is priority number one at this time, he said.We are pushing hard to have Valerie Amos visit Syria as soon as possible and Syrian statements had indicated a visit could still be arranged, Ban said.He said it was more urgent to make a humanitarian breakthrough and that Amos should get into Damascus before Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League special envoy on Syria.Ban said Annan will have a broad flexibility in dealing with Assad in a bid to obtain a halt to the violence which has dragged on for almost a year now as rebels seek to oust the Syrian president.The Arab Leagues plan for Syria calls on Assad to hand over powers to a deputy to organize new elections.But the UN leader indicated that Annan would not just press the Arab League plan.To have political dialogue with Syrian authorities, he should be given broader flexibility, a broader framework. This is what we have agreed, rather than sticking to any specific point in the Arab League plan, Ban said.Annan has already met the Syrian and Iranian ambassadors to the United Nations, other Arab envoys and the representatives of the five permanent UN Security Council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.He will travel to Cairo on Wednesday for talks with the head of the Arab League, Nabil el-Arabi. From there he will try to visit Damascus as soon as possible, Ban said.