‘Today, Sergei Lavrov and I, on behalf of our president and our countries call on every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russian Federation have reached, to. bring this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process, ‘ US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.
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If the ceasefire holds for seven days, it could lead to Russian and USA military coordination, Kerry said.
Lavrov said he hoped the ceasefire would lead to the prompt resumption of negotiations over Syria’s political future. -Russian interaction has upset several leading national security officials in Washington, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and Kerry only appeared at the news conference after several hours of internal USA discussions.
“Russia will do what depends on us”, he said.
The landmark agreement comes after months of unsuccessful efforts to reach a ceasefire between Assad’s government and moderate rebels that would expand humanitarian access for hundreds of thousands of Syrians, efforts met by public skepticism from both the White House and the Pentagon.
Kerry said the “bedrock” of the new deal was an agreement that the Syrian government would not fly combat missions in an agreed area on the pretext of hunting fighters from the banned Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
“That should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighborhoods”, Kerry said.
“I call on all parties to the Syria conflict and all countries with influence upon them to do what is needed to end violence and lift sieges”. Then, the US and Russian Federation would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad’s air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Fath al-Sham; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State.
“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. “Not indiscriminately, but in a strategic, precise and judicious manner so they can not continue to use the regime’s indiscriminate bombing to rally people to their hateful crimes”.
“Going after Nusra is not a concession to anybody”, said Kerry.
“This requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments, and any attempts to gain additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation”.
The agreement also involves pullbacks from both sides in a major road in the war-torn city of Aleppo and the creation of a demilitarized zone, and unhindered humanitarian access.
Pentagon and U.S. intelligence officials have spoken out against the idea of closer military cooperation with Russian Federation, in particular the sharing of locations of opposition groups that have fought to topple Assad.
Both President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Ash Carter have had tough words for Russian Federation in recent days, dimming the prospect of a deal on a ceasefire and closer military cooperation.
After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, “We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead”.
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Both were cautious in describing the deal but said it was a possible “turning point” after more than five years of a brutal war that has killed more than 400,000 people.
