The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad continues to keep shipments of humanitarian aid from entering the country – a violation of the newly-implemented cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russian Federation, two U.N. officials said Thursday.
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Castello Road has special status under the U.S. -Russia agreement and the United States and Russian Federation are expected to manage a demilitarization of the route, allowing new checkpoints to ensure the flow of aid, de Mistura said.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry told Lavrov by telephone that the United States expects Moscow to use its influence on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “to allow UN humanitarian convoys to reach Aleppo and other areas in need”.
What is known about the deal is that moderate Syrian opposition groups and Syrian regime will have a seven-day cassation of hostilities and parties will allow humanitarian aid access to besieged areas. “The humanitarian aid, the most substantial change for the people of Syria other than the cessation of bombings, has run into problems”, United Nations special envoy for the Syria crisis Staffan de Mistura told journalists at the UN’s headquarters in Geneva today.
The lack of permission was “a very major disappointment” even for Syria’s ally Russian Federation, de Mistura said. “It is particularly regrettable”. These are days which we should have used for convoys to move with the permit to go because there is no fighting, he stressed.
Washington said late Wednesday that US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov had agreed to prolong the ceasefire which began on Monday.
Earlier, activists said the ceasefire was still holding despite some violations.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said Thursday that government forces were still on the road, and there was no official announcement of a withdrawal.
Opposition activists said government forces tried to storm Jobar, northeast of the capital, but were repelled by opposition fighters.
A Syrian government soldier and unidentified people walk in the damaged Khan al-Wazir market in the government-held side of Aleppo’s historic city centre on September 16, 2016.
The UN had hoped forty trucks of food, enough to feed 80,000 people for one month, could be delivered to besieged rebel-held eastern parts of Aleppo as soon as possible.
Speaking in Geneva, de Mistura blamed Assad’s government for the delay.
Russian Federation said Friday that only Moscow and the Syrian regime were fulfilling a truce deal hammered out with the United States, but stressed it is ready to extend it for another 72 hours.
Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy foreign minister said the future of Assad is an internal Syrian issue and the U.S. -Russia Syria agreement does not deal with it.
As part of the U.S. If confirmed, it would be the first time that U.S. special forces would work with the Turkish military in Syria.
A main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, said it rejects the presence of a “Russian occupation” force on the road and that United Nations peacekeepers should run the operation to guarantee the delivery of aid.
Elsewhere in the province, an airstrike on the IS-held town of Mayadeen killed at least nine people and wounded dozens, according to opposition activists and Deir el-Zour 24, an activist collective.
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The International Syria Support Group includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, France, Iran, as well as several European and Arab countries, and the Arab League and European Union.
