U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, right, listens as Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, talks to the media during a bilateral meeting on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, May 1, 2016.
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But, in some of his most downbeat comments yet on the effort to end the deadly five-year-old conflict, Kerry warned that he did not want to promise success.
Kerry said that progress was being made and that talks with Russian Federation and coalition partners were “getting closer to a place of understanding” on renewing a ceasefire, including around the city of Aleppo.
Syria’s government said on Sunday it was extending a ceasefire in and around Damascus, while activists reported heavy fighting by the regime and rebels in Aleppo.
“We are talking directly to the Russians, even now”, Kerry said, after a week in which Moscow refused USA calls to rein in its ally, Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Still, rebels on Monday lobbed rockets into government-held areas in the western part of the city while government helicopters dropped crude and unguided “barrel bombs” on opposition-held areas in Aleppo and surrounding villages, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Speaking later to staff at the US mission in Geneva, Kerry said he hoped that an agreement about Aleppo could be announced within the next few days.
The US and Saudi top diplomats were in the Swiss city to salvage Syria’s crumbling truce, as well as the peace talks that depend on it.
It was not immediately clear whether Russian Federation would accept such a plan or if Moscow could persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government to respect the prospective zones.
The Syrian army said Monday that the regime of silence state near the capital Damascus will be extended for 48 hours, according to the national Syrian TV.
“In order to uphold the agreed-upon cessation of hostilities system, a state of regime of silence will be observed on Saturday in areas in the Eastern Ghouta east of Damascus and the northern countryside of Latakia”, the army said in a statement.
Since March 2011, the United States and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against Syria.
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross says a humanitarian convoy has delivered aid to 12,000 families trapped in a government-besieged area north of the central Syrian city of Homs. The Observatory said security forces fired tear gas into Hama’s main prison.
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“There is a need for a new initiative in the Syria dialogue to keep it alive, the Syrian moderate opposition is finding it increasingly hard to justify their participation in a political process”, Hammond told reporters during a visit to Mexico City.
