Obama convened a meeting with his National Security team today at the State Department as diplomats grapple over the details of a cessation of hostilities in Syria.
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In order to promote the implementation of the cessation of hostilities, a Cease-fire Task Force co-chaired by the United States and Russian Federation has been established under U.N. auspices.
However, the government has insisted there is a link between the attack and Syrian Kurdish fighters.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told American lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not vouch for the success of the cease-fire agreement but that it is the best pathway for ending five years of violence in Syria that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced another 11 million from their homes.
On Thursday Russia and the United States submitted to the UN Security Council a draft resolution in support of Syrian political process and the ceasefire regime that is to take effect on Saturday.
That includes besieged areas, where hundreds of thousands of people are said to remain.
There have been recent reports about the possibility of a ground incursion into Syria by Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Critics say it is not clear exactly where along Syria’s complicated front lines the fighting would stop and where counterterrorism operations could continue.
The state news agency Tass quoted him as saying that the “decisive fight against them will certainly continue”.
US President Barack Obama warned Russian Federation and Syria that the “world will be watching” when the ceasefire goes into force. “We know that this Observatory has repeatedly given information that unfortunately was not confirmed and was not proved by at least any data, I do not say true data”, he said. The High Negotiations Committee, or HNC, said a military committee has been formed to follow up on the cease-fire. Kurdish officials have called for the group to be added to those excluded from the truce agreement.
If the ceasefire takes holds, De Mistura hopes to convene a new round of peace talks next week, possibly on March 4. It also accuses the Syrian Kurdish forces of working alongside Russian Federation, which strongly opposes Ankara’s key strategic aim of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “I think they are being more careful”, Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara.
Referring to the Kurdish group’s recently opened bureau in Russian Federation, he said: “The PYD has started to sell out the USA and has opened an office in Moscow”.
The truce, however, does not cover terrorist groups, like ISIS and the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
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The Kremlin has denied allegations that Russia’s air force bombed civilian positions east of Damascus on the eve of the ceasefire. The United Nations announced the first high-altitude airdrop of 21 metric tons of aid Wednesday over the city of Deir el-Zour, which is under siege from the Islamic State extremist group.
