The Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday that Syrian troops’ attacks on the Nusra Front are necessary to prevent the militants from blocking civilian areas. The U.S.is pushing for the eventual departure of the Syrian leader, while Russian Federation is continuing to back him after reversing the tide of the war by starting an air war campaign in September that averted the threat of Assad’s defeat and put his forces on the offensive.
Advertisement
Among them were 82 army troops and pro-regime militiamen, 94 members of Al-Nusra Front and allied rebel groups, and 34 ISIS jihadists, the Observatory said.
The ministry said Moscow expects Washington to continue coordinating the cease-fire’s enforcement and strongly warned the United States of America against supplying any weapons to the rebels.
The decision to hold the parliamentary elections on the same day with the start of peace talks is considered by several experts as a signal that President Bashar al-Assad has no plans to step aside, which is a key demand of the opposition delegation at the negotiations.
In March, at the end of last round of talks, de Mistura handed a document to the Syrian regime and opposition in Geneva, outlining 12 basic principles for achieving a political solution to the Syria crisis.
“We agreed with de Mistura that we will once again discuss our proposal the next time we will meet on Monday”, he said.
Heavy fighting raged Friday on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo between government forces and opposition rebels, activists said, marring the UN-sponsored peace talks underway in Geneva.
Kirby told reporters that some of the Syrian government actions in and around the city of Aleppo are being backed by Russian air strikes.
The Local Coordination Committees, another opposition monitoring group, said two Syrian army tanks were destroyed in the Handarat area, just north of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and former commercial center.
Opposition official Yahya Kodmani said in Geneva that de Mistura told them that an expert suggested to the envoy that Assad stays and in return “the three vice presidents will be from the opposition”.
The Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee, which is negotiating in Geneva, has accused the Syrian government of over 2,000 breaches of the cease-fire.
“A big battle is being fought in Aleppo, and it will lead to a major disaster should the regime succeed” in cutting off the route linking rebel-held parts of Aleppo to the northern countryside, he said.
Medicins Sans Frontieres, also known as MSF or Doctors Without Borders, said it was “extremely worried” about their security and access to health care.
But he insisted that there would be no role for Assad or anyone who had played a central role in the civil war, which has killed 270,000 people and displaced millions.
Muskilda Zancada, head of the MSF mission in Syria, says the situation on the ground “remains very unpredictable”.
Advertisement
Daesh militants advanced on opposition-held territory along the Turkish border, the Observatory said Thursday. Rebels had previously advanced from Azaz, a town eight kilometres (five miles) south of the Turkish border, towards IS bastions further east.
