But then things started going badly wrong.
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The raids came as what is likely to be the final attempt by Barack Obama’s administration to find a negotiated solution to the five year old civil war appeared close to collapse.
“Hundreds of thousands of people in Aleppo are waiting for this truce to allow aid to enter the city”, he said, adding that there are aid trucks still waiting on the Turkey-Syria border.
– Once the USA and Russian Federation agreed that those seven days had brought significantly reduced violence, they would set up a Joint Implementation Center (JIC). -Russian targeting of jihadists including Islamic State and a faction formerly known as the Nusra Front, which was al Qaeda’s Syrian wing until it changed its name in July.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the besieged city of Aleppo was hit by at least four airstrikes on Sunday. “The last two were barrel bombs”, he said, the sound of an explosion audible in the background. Rebels said that plan would amount to the government declaring the truce over.
According to a USA defense official, the leading theory is that the Syrian forces hit in the airstrike may have been conscripts or prisoners wearing civilian clothes, not regular Syrian Army uniforms.
Officials said the strikes killed more than 60 soldiers.
Kerry noted that United States officials were “meeting now with the Russians in Geneva”.
The Russians called an emergency meeting of the UN security council to discuss the incident, a move describe by the USA ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, as a stunt.
Even without the accidental bombing, the hold on hostilities was largely toothless.
Russia’s United Nations ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said: “It is highly suspicious that the USA chose to conduct this particular airstrike at this time,”adding that it did not look like an honest mistake”.
Rhetorically, at least, the diplomats expressed some hope.
But while the agreement has led to a significant reduction in fighting over the past week, violence has been increasing in recent days, and a planned delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo – one of the first steps in the deal – has been repeatedly postponed.
Turnbull said it remains to be seen whether the incident would jeopardise the Syrian ceasefire.
This marks a “very, very dark day for humanitarians in Syria and indeed across the world”, he said, stressing that it was “paramount that we are able to establish the facts through an independent investigation”.
It’s hard to imagine the JIC being a place of harmony in such circumstances.
Artillery shelling and airstrikes hit opposition-held parts of Aleppo, correspondents in the city reported following the regime’s statement. “I think we need others and more credible sources, before I conclude anything”. But so far that hasn’t happened, much to the exasperation of United Nations agencies which have convoys ready to roll into the worst affected areas.
“The Russians made the agreement”.
The Russian military alleges that anti-Assad rebels had violated the ceasefire 302 times as of Monday morning, according to the Kremlin-run Interfax news agency. The head of the centre and several others were badly injured.
A Syrian activist group says 92 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the U.S. -Russia-brokered cease-fire a week ago. “It will be hard to change this mind-set”.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and it is unclear whether an airstrike hit the convoy or it was shelled.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir pledged his country’s support for Syria’s opposition forces, along with representatives of Qatar, Turkey and European nations, and stressed that Assad can not remain in power, even though that issue has been delayed until the fighting wanes.
United States policy is to support “moderate” rebels and negotiate the removal of Assad, though who might replace him and how (the Assad dynasty doesn’t accommodate alternatives) is a vexed question.
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Earlier, the Russian military denied it was behind the strikes. It has stabilized a tottering regime, but victory is not at hand.
