“The fighting is flaring on all the fronts of southern Aleppo”, rebel spokesman Captain Abdul Salam Abdul Razak said.
Advertisement
– The regime “will not fly combat missions anywhere where the opposition is present in an area that we have agreed on with very real specificity”, Mr Kerry said.
The two powers back opposite sides of the conflict, with Moscow supporting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the USA behind a coalition of rebel groups it regards as moderate. It adds that the U.S. -Russia agreement “was reached with the knowledge and approval of the Syrian government”, AP reported.
Basma Kodmani, of the Saudi-backed opposition alliance High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said the group is cautious of the agreement, adding that there needed to be mechanisms to ensure the “enforcement of the deal”.
The Aleppo Media Center, an activist collective, said 45 died in strikes that took place just hours after a new U.S. A spokeswoman had earlier welcomed any deal that spared civilian lives but cast doubt on whether Moscow would be able to pressure Damascus to stop indiscriminate bombing.
US Secretary of State John Kerry called on all sides to respect the deal, which was reached after marathon talks in Switzerland and several failed attempts to hammer out the details in recent weeks. “It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and hard-to-reach areas including Aleppo”, he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five documents that would enable coordination of the fight against terrorism and a revival of Syria’s failed truce.
– It “requires forces from both sides to pull back from Castello Road” to the north of the battleground city to “create a demilitarised zone around it, permitting as quickly as possible the resumption of humanitarian and civilian traffic along that road”.
The agreement, by the powers that back opposing sides in the five-year-old war, promises a nationwide truce from sunset on Monday, and improves access for humanitarian aid and joint military targeting of hardline Islamist groups.
– From Monday, work will start for a Joint Implementation Centre, including the “sharing of information necessary for the delineation of territories controlled by (Fateh al-Sham) and opposition groups in the area of active hostilities”.
If there is actually a decrease in violence, then begins the most interesting part of this deal: the United States and Russian Federation are set to establish “a Joint Implementation Center”, from which they will start sharing data and coordinate campaign to target ISIS and al-Qaida-linked militants.
Lavrov said the U.S. and Russian Federation agreed on zones in which joint “strikes against terrorists” would be conducted.
Advertisement
As part of the arrangement, Russian Federation is expected to keep Syrian air force planes from bombing areas controlled by the opposition. It says the agreement is “critical” for ending the fighting throughout Syria, and specifically Aleppo.
