What has been seen and described as one of the many fragile cease-fires in Syria is holding.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry dubbed the deal a “turning point” and said it could mark a move “towards a negotiated peace and a political transition in Syria”. “The earliest reports are that there is… some reduction in violence”. The statement was non-committal about whether the groups would abide by the cease-fire.
Bashar al Assad was speaking during a visit to the Damascus suburb of Daraya, which was evacuated by rebels and returned to state control last month.
Residents remained out on the streets until midnight, AFP said, taking advantage of the truce to celebrate the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.
“The Syrian state is determined to recover every area from the terrorists”, President Assad said in an interview aired by state media.
Two jihadist groups – the Islamic State group and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front – are excluded from the truce and will continue to face air strikes. “This is incorrect”, US State Department Spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.
A final rocket was sacked from the east into government areas just five minutes before 7:00 pm, while rebel neighbourhoods had not been hit by bombardments for about two hours, they said.
DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 12 (UPI) – A cease-fire – supported by both Russian Federation and the United States – between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and a consolidated group of Syrian rebels began on Monday.
The Syrian government and its main allies, Russian Federation and Iran, say they will abide by the weeklong truce, which was set to begin at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Monday.
Syria’s main opposition umbrella group and several rebel factions called for “guarantees” on the implementation of a landmark truce deal before endorsing it, hours before it was to begin on Monday.
Hours before the ceasefire started, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave a defiant message to opposition forces.
The ceasefire follows months of talks between Russian Federation and the U.S. and the deal struck on Friday (9 September) is hoped to allow humanitarian groups to make aid deliveries to the worst-hit areas, in particular to Aleppo.
The Syrian civil war has devastated parts of the country, including the besieged city of Aleppo.
“This catastrophe developed step by step, folks, and it can only be reversed step by step”, he said.
It is estimated that as many as half million people have died inside Syria during five years of civil war.
Nationalist rebel groups, including factions backed by Assad’s foreign enemies, wrote to Washington on Sunday to express deep concerns.
Under the terms of the agreement, the rebels and the Syrian government are expected to stop attacking one another.
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Rami Abdurrahman from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says “calm is prevailing” in most of the country on Tuesday, though there were minor violations in central Hama province.
