He also said it was to display “respect” towards the World Humanitarian Day tomorrow and signal “deep unhappiness” about the lack of a pause that is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching anywhere in Syria, except Deir ez-Zor, where the World Food Programme (WFP) has conducted airdrops 100 times.
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Russian Federation has said it will support a 48-hour ceasefire in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo and is ready to start the first “humanitarian pause” next week.
The Foreign Secretary welcomed the support of Russia – President Bashar Assad’s key ally in the conflict – for a 48-hour cessation as a “step forward”.
Russian Federation on Thursday said it was ready to support a 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo and will allow humanitarian aid to be delivered in besieged areas, as long as all parties involved respected the agreement.
Another rebel official, Zakaria Malahifji of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group, said the opposition had expressed its willingness to cooperate with a truce, but Russian warplanes had been bombing the city heavily since the morning.
In a sign of the image’s potency, Moscow issued a statement on Friday denying that any of its warplanes had conducted air raids over the area.
After Russia’s announcement, De Mistura said that the UN’s humanitarian team “is now set to mobilize itself to respond to this challenge”.
Aleppo, Syria’s most populous prewar city and once its commercial hub, has become the focus of fighting in the five-year-old war.
Some two million people on both sides of the divided city have been without running water for almost two weeks after infrastructure was damaged by bombing earlier this month. This proposal concerns both Moscow neighborhoods of Aleppo, controlled by the rebels, the western districts, held by government forces.
“Russia is calling for joint work with the UN and the United States”.
The situation on the ground, though, has not immediately improved, residents told Al Jazeera.
The Syrian opposition has said it wants to see a credible pause in the bloodshed and improved aid access before talks can resume.
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“More precise date and time will be determined after receiving information about the readiness of the convoys from the United Nations representatives and receiving confirmation of the security guarantees of their safe travel from our American partners”, a Russian defence ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the Tass news agency.
