In a letter to armed opposition groups seen by Reuters, Michael Ratney urged them to abide by the U.S.
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He said the accord would also prevent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force from flying combat missions anywhere the opposition is present, calling this provision the “bedrock of the agreement”. For its part, the United States has to get the opposition groups to end any and all alliances with the al-Qaida-linked militants. -Russian military cooperation in the fight against terrorism at the center of the effort to end Syria’s war.
“The Syrian Government has been informed by us about these arrangements, and it is ready to fulfil them”, he added. Forty days of fighting in Aleppo has killed almost 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.
Syrian government “air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows and the most frequent violations of the hostilities”, said Kerry.
The United Nations said on Friday the Syrian government had effectively stopped aid convoys this month and the besieged city of Aleppo was close to running out of fuel, making the talks even more urgent. The officials briefed reporters traveling on Kerry’s plane on condition they not be quoted by name. After the seven-day cessation of hostilities and delivery of aid, “US and Russian experts will work together to defeat Daesh and Nusra”, Kerry said.
At one point, Lavrov said he was considering “calling it a day” on talks, expressing frustration with what he described as an hours-long wait for a US response. Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov had met four times since a previous Geneva meeting on August 26, and their respective presidents, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, discussed the matter at a summit in China. They’ve held a flurry of phone calls in recent days.
Jets believed to be Russian also hit several areas in rebel held Idlib city in northwestern Syria, targeting a busy market with reports of several dead and injured, residents and the monitor said.
And no measures were described that would hold any of the parties to account if they violated the terms of a deal that is being struck at a time when the United States has little leverage over Russian Federation in Syria.
The breakthrough is seen as having the potential to provide a turning point for Syria, where the conflict has killed up to 500,000 people.
Russia’s military intervention past year has shored up Assad’s position.
The New York Times notes that American officials don’t seem very optimistic that the plan will work, since they believe that Russian Federation or the Syrian regime are trustworthy actors in the conflict.
Moscow had for months made the case for the United States to join forces against jihadist groups like the Islamic State, proposals Washington had dismissed until now.
Kerry’s offer includes intelligence sharing and joint targeting coordination. If rebels violate the ceasefire then Russian Federation could respond militarily but if Assad is the one to violate the truce, “the USA has no clear enforcement stick”. The idea of such cooperation, however, has prompted significant skepticism from powerful members of the USA national security establishment in Washington.
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“Very big questions remain surrounding how exactly the USA and Russian Federation plan to determine areas where the opposition is sufficiently distant from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and where they are in fact too close and thus legitimate counter-terrorism targets”, said Charles Lister a Middle East Institute fellow who has written a book on jihadist dynamics in the Syria conflict.
