Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters on Tuesday that Moscow wants the deal, which launched a nationwide cessation of hostilities in Syria, to be made public but that the USA opposes such a move.
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Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters that rebel groups intend to comply with the plan to withdraw 500 metres from the Castello Road in order to make it a neutral space, but the government must also pull back.
The U.N. has estimated that well over half a million people are living under siege in Syria, while independent monitor Siege Watch says that number actually exceeds 1 million.
“It’s not a last chance for peace”.
A ceasefire negotiated by the USA and Russian Federation is just hours old, and many believe its efficacy will only become clearer in the coming hours.
It is hoped the ceasefire will provide a window for the delivery of aid to the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in desperate need of food, medicine and other essentials.
The cease-fire took effect at sunset Monday, with sporadic small violations.
One of Syria’s most powerful factions, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham’s battlefield alliance with other insurgent groups makes it hard for the United States to target them without the danger of inflicting harm on other opposition groups.
Residents in Aleppo have welcomed the lull in fighting, but expressed frustration about the delay in promised aid.
The Israeli military struck artillery positions in Syria on Tuesday after a projectile from that country’s civil war hit the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights, but denied a Syrian claim that Syrian forces.
He added the United Nations trucks were waiting at the border “ready to go”.
“There’s some work that we’re trying to clarify with the Russians and obviously through the Russians with the regime and with the opposition forces in eastern Aleppo to make sure that there be no threat to the convoys and they could go through unhindered”, the official said.
But the opposition’s Sabra blamed Damascus, saying the government’s insistence on controlling aid was obstructing its delivery to Aleppo under the agreement.
If it does happen, however, USA officials said the cooperation would be a sharply limited and carefully controlled exchange of very basic targeting information that would protect US intelligence gathering and tactics, and involve detailed vetting to ensure that any proposed Russian strikes would hit Islamic State or al-Qaida-linked combatants, not the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“We have come here to give the message that the Syrian nation is determined to retake every piece of land from the terrorists, and to re-establish safety and security, to reconstruct and rebuild infrastructure and rebuild everything that has been destroyed”, he said in footage broadcast by SANA. Medical facilities in rebel-held areas have been frequent targets for government bombings. He said he had been in touch with the Russian government, urging them to exercise influence on the Syrian government to let the trucks in, and with the Americans to get Syrian armed groups to cooperate.
Aid convoys moved into the Turkish border town of Cilvegozu, waiting authorization from the Syrian government to enter the country and deliver supplies to eastern Aleppo.
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But a similar truce in February gradually broke down and violence escalated sharply, particularly around Aleppo.
