Mercy Corps [to 5 March 2016]
http://www.mercycorps.org/press-room/releases

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Syria, March 3, 2016
National Press Club Newsmaker: “Can We Still Save Lives in Syria?”
Remarks of Neal Keny-Guyer, Chief Executive Officer
Full audio from the event can be found here.
[Excerpt]
Washington, DC: Thank you, Tommy. Thank you all for coming today, and thank you to the National Press Club Newsmaker committee for hosting this important conversation.

I am Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps is a global organization, 5,000 strong, living and working in more than 40 countries around the world. We have been working inside Syria continuously for more than a decade. Since the conflict began, we have built a huge aid operation in Syria, second only to the United Nations, serving 570,000 people each month.

I have two main points I want to make today:
First. The agreement to cease hostilities – while imperfect – represents important progress and we should seize every opportunity to make it work – on all fronts, humanitarian and diplomatic. It has been 110 days since the talks in Vienna, and 748 days – more than two years – since the Geneva II talks. It’s incumbent on all of us to double-down and turn this agreement into a sustainable cease-fire and, ultimately, a lasting peace. For us in the humanitarian community, this means doing everything we can to aggressively push humanitarian assistance into the most besieged and war-affected areas, while reminding everyone that this level of suffering cannot and must not continue.

Second. Unless we in the global community can turn this cessation into a durable cease-fire, we will continue to fail the people of Syria. The fact is, despite diplomatic progress, an end to the misery is still far away…