By John Irish
MUNICH&nbsp;(Reuters) -The head of the World Food Programme (WFP) on Saturday pressured authorities in&nbsp;northwestern&nbsp;Syria&nbsp;to stop blocking access to the area as it seeks to help hundreds of thousands of people ravaged by earthquakes.
The agency last week&nbsp;said&nbsp;it was running out of stocks in northwest Syria&nbsp;and&nbsp;called for more border crossings to be opened from Turkey.
Speaking&nbsp;to&nbsp;Reuters&nbsp;on the&nbsp;sidelines&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Munich&nbsp;Security&nbsp;Conference,&nbsp;WFP&nbsp;Director&nbsp;David&nbsp;Beasley&nbsp;said&nbsp;the&nbsp;Syrian&nbsp;and&nbsp;Turkish&nbsp;governments&nbsp;had&nbsp;been&nbsp;cooperating&nbsp;very&nbsp;well, but that&nbsp;its&nbsp;operations&nbsp;were&nbsp;being&nbsp;hampered&nbsp;in&nbsp;northwestern&nbsp;Syria.
"The problems we are running into is the cross-line&nbsp;operations&nbsp;into northwest&nbsp;Syria&nbsp;where the&nbsp;northwestern&nbsp;Syrian&nbsp;authorities are not giving us the access we need,"&nbsp;Beasley&nbsp;told&nbsp;Reuters.
"That is bottlenecking our&nbsp;operations. That has to get fixed straight away."
More than 45,000 people have&nbsp;been&nbsp;killed in earthquakes that struck Turkey&nbsp;and&nbsp;Syria,&nbsp;and&nbsp;the toll is expected to soar with some 264,000 apartments in Turkey destroyed&nbsp;and&nbsp;many still missing in the country's worst modern disaster.
Beasley&nbsp;said&nbsp;the devastation on crucial infrastructure&nbsp;and&nbsp;buildings would mean that survivors would need help for months to come, but the&nbsp;WFP, which is providing hot meals&nbsp;and&nbsp;take-home rations, would run out of money in about 60 days.
"Time is running out&nbsp;and&nbsp;we are running out of money. Our operation is about $50 million a month for our earthquake response alone so unless Europe wants a new wave of refugees, we need get the support we need,"&nbsp;Beasley&nbsp;said.
In&nbsp;Syria,&nbsp;already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, the bulk of fatalities have&nbsp;been&nbsp;in the northwest.
The area is controlled by insurgents at war with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad which has complicated efforts to get aid to people.
Thousands of&nbsp;Syrians who&nbsp;had&nbsp;sought refuge in Turkey from their civil war have returned to their homes in the war zone - at least for now.
"I don't know why they are blocking. Why play games at a time like this. I will call them out&nbsp;and&nbsp;will not be silent about this,"&nbsp;Beasley&nbsp;said, referring to the authorities in&nbsp;northwestern&nbsp;Syria.
(Reporting by John Irish; editing by Jason Neely)

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WFP boss criticises northwestern Syrian authorities for slowing quake aid