The United States accused Syria of blocking aid to besieged cities and warned it will not boost military cooperation with Russian Federation unless Damascus honours the truce agreement.
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Humanitarian access hinges on control of the Castello Road, the main route into the besieged rebel-held part and a major frontline in the war, but so far there has been no progress towards opening it.
The truce brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov is meant to suspend the civil war for a week to reduce violence and allow humanitarian aid deliveries into besieged areas. The UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland also blamed armed opposition groups for delaying aid deliveries.
At the same time, despite all the violations, Lavrov and Kerry agreed in a phone conversation on Friday that the ceasefire is still holding and its observation is “at a satisfactory level”.
If the deal holds, it could open the door to new peace talks.
The US-Russian deal calls for the truce to be renewed every 48 hours, and for Washington and Moscow to begin unprecedented joint targeting of jihadists if it lasts a week.
In New York, the UN Security Council cancelled an urgent meeting that had been called to discuss whether to endorse the truce, billed as the “last chance” to end the five-year war that has killed 300,000 people. The council was to hold closed consultations later Friday.
“We are working on it”, he told reporters in NY, adding that he thought it should be adopted when the Security Council meets on Syria next Wednesday.
“It was worked out as a bilateral U.S./Russia arrangement”, according to spokesman Mark Toner.
The White House is blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government for preventing humanitarian aid from entering high-need areas of Syria. The Russian Defense Ministry only mentioned that it had military observers on the road and said nothing about troop deployment. “There are wounded people and others who need food”, he said. Russian and Syrian government flags were visible in the distance.
Hours-long fighting and shelling erupted in neighborhoods on the edges of Damascus on Friday, with activists and residents calling the clashes the heaviest in the Syrian capital in weeks. Government-held areas were shelled in the north-eastern Damascus neighbourhood of Qaboun, wounding three people, Syrian state media said.
The claims against the Assad regime followed other claims by Russia’s military that more than 60 violations by rebels have occurred since the cease-fire took effect Monday.
The Britain-based Observatory follows the war using a network of contacts in Syria.
But it does not cover militant groups considered terrorists, such as ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al Nusra Front.
“This is one of the most serious violations of the cease-fire”, al-Shami said via Skype.
SANA accused the insurgents of launching the attack, triggering retaliation by government forces. The Observatory on Thursday reported the first three deaths since the cease-fire went into effect.
The agency quoted another Russian official, Col. Sergei Kapitsyn, a senior operative of the Aleppo group, as saying during a video conference on Friday that the Syrian government troops had to be “redeployed to the initial positions to prevent the enemy from taking over the demilitarized zone”.
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He quoted Russian observers of the ceasefire near the besieged city of Aleppo and said that the “the only party which is willing to hold talks, comply with the cease-fire and pull back the troops in order to allow United Nations humanitarian aid convoys” are the Syrian government forces.
