Syrian President Bashar al Assad has offered an amnesty to rebels, as Russian Federation pledged to open humanitarian corridors around the besieged city of Aleppo.
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Russian Federation says it will work with Syria to open up corridors allowing civilians and unarmed rebels a chance to leave besieged areas.
Chamaa, referring to a proposed humanitarian corridor for civilians, told a briefing: “We would like this to be realised for sure, under global supervision….We don’t know the intention of the Russian and Syrian forces”.
“We have repeatedly called on the warring parties to reconcile, but every time, the militants violated the cessation of hostilities, shelled villages, attacked the positions of government troops”, he said.
Rebel-held neighbourhoods have been effectively besieged – with food shortages and price hikes – since pro-regime forces completely cut off the opposition’s main supply road into the city.
Rights groups said opening safe passages to civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo city won’t avert a catastrophe and does not give Syrian and Russian forces carte blanche to further blockade the opposition-controlled territory.
Fliers dropped over eastern Aleppo showed four corridors leading to government areas, but the media office for the opposition’s rescue group in east Aleppo claimed no safe corridors have been opened.
The UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said this week he hoped peace talks aimed at ending more than five years of brutal conflict could resume at the end of August.
“On behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, today, (we will) start a large-scale humanitarian operation together with the Syrian government to help civilians in Aleppo”, Shoigu said in televised comments. Then al Qaeda’s Syrian branch announced on Thursday it was terminating its relationship with the global network created by Osama bin Laden and changing its name to remove what it called a pretext by the United States and other countries to attack Syrians.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the corridors must ensure the safety and respect to all civilians, regardless of whether they decide to leave.
It has been roughly divided into a regime-controlled west and a rebel-held east since July 2012.
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, aircraft belonging to the coalition struck the village of al-Ghandour late on Thursday, killing the 28.
Shoigu stated Moscow would sending a top general and experts to Geneva at request of US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the crisis surrounding Aleppo.
In a “large-scale humanitarian operation”, three relief corridors would be set up to distribute food and medical aid to civilians, and provide them – along with rebels who chose to surrender – the opportunity to leave the city, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.
“This would appear to be a demand for the surrender of opposition groups and the evacuation of Syrian civilians from Aleppo”.
Lund said if Assad cements his hold on Aleppo through a siege or even by retaking it in part or in full, “that could be the moment when certain foreign backers of the rebellion decide to call it a day”.
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Syrian rebels have been in control of eastern Aleppo for most of the conflict.
