The top diplomats from the United States and Russian Federation were to meet with other key players in NY later Thursday, after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s peace process was facing a “make or break moment”.
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Key players in the civil war will resume diplomatic efforts in NY later to save the troubled ceasefire deal and plot a path towards ending the five-year civil war.
Warplanes mounted the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, as Russian Federation and the Syrian government spurned a US plea to halt flights, burying any hope for the revival of a doomed ceasefire.
In footage posted by the group, a ball of flame shoots up over the city, lighting up the skyline and sparking fires on the horizon.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said they were “the most intense strikes in months” on those two districts and that they had killed seven people, including three women and three children. “There is no weapon they didn’t use”, he said, speaking to Reuters from Turkey.
There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military or mention on state media of Thursday’s bombardment of Aleppo.
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Thursday rejected the claims that Russian or Syrian forces were behind a recent attack on the humanitarian convoy en route to Aleppo.
“Today we are sending an inter-agency, cross-line convoy with urgently needed aid to people in a besieged area of rural Damascus”, United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) spokesman Jens Laerke said in a statement.
Aid operations were halted so security could be reviewed in the wake of Monday’s deadly attack on a Red Cross convoy, which the United States believes was carried out by Russian jets.
Thursday’s meeting of the International Syria Support Group comes after the two men blamed each other for spoiling the country’s cease-fire that they had agreed to earlier this month.
But the president of Iran on Wednesday dismissed that idea, saying it would help Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, which changed its name in July and says it cut its ties to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.
Sounding a cautious note before Thursday’s talks, Kerry said: “It’s going to be hard”.
Talks in “next few weeks”? .
Kerry told the UN Security Council on September 21 that he believes there is a way “out of the carnage” in Syria and that a no-fly zone could restore credibility to attempts to end the civil war there and allow humanitarian aid to flow into people living in besieged areas. He said the attack on the aid convoy raised doubts over whether Russian Federation and the Syrian government could live up to the terms of the ceasefire deal.
“The planes have not left the city’s skies and the bombing is continuous and indiscriminate”, said one activist inside opposition-controlled eastern Aleppo.
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But the ceasefire’s collapse has stalled aid deliveries.
