The U.N.'s beleaguered agency for Palestinian refugees is to open an office in Ankara within weeks, its chief Philippe Lazzarini said on a visit to the Turkish capital on Jan. 8.
"We have signed the final agreement with the government of Türkiye and this time it has been also endorsed by the parliament," he told reporters, adding that it was "a question of weeks" until it opened.
During his visit to Ankara, Lazzarini also met with Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and first lady Emine Erdoğan. During the meeting, Erdoğan thanked Lazzarini for his work and humanitarian assistance on Palestine.
Lazzarini said that Palestinian refugees have largely lost their freedom of movement, noting that Türkiye’s humanitarian aid efforts for Palestinians have a significant impact in the region.
The move came a day after the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said it was going through a "dire" financial crisis that had forced it to fire 571 of its Gazan staff who had continued working for it after being evacuated from the war-ravaged territory.
UNRWA said the "extremely difficult" decision was down to funding issues sparked by a fall in the voluntary contributions it relies on following a campaign of increasingly harsh criticism and attacks by Israel.
For more than seven decades, the agency has provided aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and was still operating "despite many, many constraints,” Lazzarini said.
Last year, Israel banned UNRWA from operating inside the country and Lazzarini said it was also seeking to halt its operations in the Palestinian territories.
"There is a desire by the government of Israel to dismantle UNRWA, to make sure that the agency has no future role in Gaza and possibly in the occupied Palestinian territories," he said.
Israel has been ratcheting up pressure on UNRWA over the past two years.
