The US State Department has confirmed that Moscow and Washington have agreed that the ceasefire in Syria should include the city of Aleppo, which has recently been the scene of the county’s heaviest fighting.
Advertisement
On Wednesday, Russia blamed the United States and an upsurge in violence by Nusra Front militants for a failure to extend a ceasefire plan to Aleppo the previous day.
“We look to Russian Federation as a co-chair of the International Syria Support Group to press for the Assad regime’s compliance with this effort, and the United States will do its part with the opposition”, said the USA government in the communique.
The cease-fire extension is part of the peace deal announced in late February by the International Syria Support Group, which is led by the USA and Russian Federation.
The permanent representatives of the Arab League held a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Aleppo, Syria’s second city, where more than 270 people have been killed since hostilities resumed on 22 April.
The rebels have fired a barrage of rockets into regime-held neighbourhoods in western Aleppo in recent days, with three more civilians killed in the attacks early on Wednesday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.
The agreement, which was finalized late on Tuesday and went into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning, comes after days of frantic negotiations between the two countries, which have led talks to bring Syria’s five-year civil war to a close.
State TV says that also on Wednesday, government troops repelled a rebel attack on an Aleppo suburb controlled by the government.
Attacks by government forces and rebels killed at least 30 people, including eight children, in the last 24 hours in Aleppo, a monitoring group said. “We are gravely concerned by the increase in breach of the cessation of hostilities”.
“(Aleppo) is to Syria what Sarajevo was to Bosnia”, said France’s United Nations ambassador Francois Delattre.
Since 2012, Aleppo city has been divided by a front line separating government forces in the west from rebel groups in the east.
After returning to Washington from his talks with De Mistura in Geneva, Kerry had warned Assad there would be “repercussions” if his regime flouts any agreement on a ceasefire for Aleppo.
He said he expected a meeting of the International Syrian Support Group, a grouping of foreign ministers of European and Middle Eastern government chaired by Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, to meet within the next two weeks.
“They made a decision to announce it now because they believe that the ceasefire is holding”, Jordan said.
Advertisement
He added that the truce was holding in areas of Damascus and Latakia region where he said there had been a “meaningful” drop in violence.
