Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has offered an amnesty to armed rebels battling his forces if they surrender, the official SANA news agency has reported.
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Government forces have surrounded rebel-held districts in eastern Aleppo since July 17, sparking fears for at least 200,000 people who live there.
It comes amid a recent offensive which has seen government forces tighten a siege on Aleppo.
Some 300,000 residents are trapped in the eastern part of the city, according to the UN.
Once an economic hub, Aleppo and surrounding countryside has suffered some of the worst fighting in the five-year conflict that has killed more than 280,000 people.
“Together with the Syrian government we will open three humanitarian corridors in order to help civilians who were kept hostage by the terrorists as well as the fighters who want to lay down their arms”, he told a meeting in Moscow.
Moscow welcomes global aid organizations which operate in Syria to join the Russia-lead humanitarian operation, he added.
The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he wants to see how the United Nations could co-ordinate with Russian Federation on its plan to help civilians and opposition fighters who lay down their weapons outside Aleppo, which he called “de-facto” besieged.
Thursday’s report came as the Russian government says safe passage is being offered out of rebel-held areas of the city to civilians and rebels who lay down their arms.
A doctor for a medical charity that operates in Aleppo also said the army had fired artillery at families gathering near another humanitarian corridor, in the opposition-held Bustan al Qasr neighbourhood. They are killing us every day.
United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura said the world body had not been consulted on Russia’s initiative, warning that the humanitarian situation was “very serious” in eastern Aleppo which had only two to three weeks worth of supplies. He said Kurdish forces from the nearby Sheikh Maqsoud district had also taken advantage of the fighting to advance into a housing complex in Bani Zeid. “Let alone the country’s win in the war”, the SANA news agency cited Assad as saying.
The amnesty offer was issued through a decree on Thursday and urged that all detainees be freed.
It’s just one area of Syria where aid is blocked – multiple parties have used siege tactics as a weapon of war over the course of the conflict, which is now in its sixth year. It is not the first time Assad has offered an amnesty, largely viewed as a form of propaganda and psychological warfare. “It is not a substitute for allowing impartial humanitarian relief for civilians who remain in opposition-held areas of the city or other besieged areas, many of whom will be skeptical about government promises”.
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Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defense Minister, informed that Moscow sends its experts to Geneva.
