Report: Officials Willing to Cooperate with International Demands to Facilitate Refugee Aid

Senior officials have expressed their readiness to comply with international demands to aid the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat Sunday.

They voiced their readiness to establish “institutional foundations with full privileges” that would be capable of managing the aid as requested by the United Nations Security Council earlier this week.

International donor groups had conditioned that a government mechanism be set in order to manage funds.

They should be spent through the World Bank, which will in turn transfer them to a dedicated fund for the refugees that would be controlled by designated by government agencies.

Earlier this week, the Security Council had called for "unprecedented" international help for the Lebanon in dealing with the refugees.

Lebanon and Jordan say they cannot cope with the fallout from the 26-month-old Syria war and have called for an international conference on the humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations says there are about 600,000 refugees registered in Lebanon, but the country's U.N. ambassador Nawaf Salam said there are more than one million Syrians in the country and think tanks such as the Beirut Institute give a figure of 1.2 million.

A Security Council statement proposed by France called for "strong, coordinated international support for Lebanon to help it continue to withstand the multiple current challenges to its security and stability."

The Security Council statement also said there should be international help for the Lebanese Armed Forces to help police the border and made a new appeal for all sides in the country to stay out of the Syria conflict.

A special fund set up by the United Nations has received only a fraction of the amount appealed for.