Earlier on Wednesday, during a heated UN Security Council meeting on Syria Lavrov denied that either his country’s or the Syrian Air Force had anything to do with the September 19 attack on the humanitarian convoy near Aleppo which killed 21 aid workers.
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A fresh airstrike in northern Syria killed four medics belonging to an worldwide aid agency, the relief group said Wednesday.
John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, accused Secretary of State John Kerry of being “intrepid but delusional” for trying to work with Russian Federation to secure long-term peace in Syria. After all, the United States acknowledged the mistaken attack Saturday, which hit a military target.
The diplomats then met, accompanied by their delegations, “to continue discussing the problem of a settlement (of the conflict) in Syria”.
“We announced that we are ready to be committed to any halt of operations, or if you want to call it ceasefire, but it’s not about Syria or Russian Federation; it’s about the United States and the terrorist groups that have been affiliated to ISIS and al-Nusra and Al Qaeda, and to the United States and to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia”, Assad said.
Like Syria, Russia has denied carrying out the convoy bombing.
“The US side can not guarantee the fulfilment of a whole number of elements of this agreement, which we saw in the past few days”, he said, adding that Washington “did not separate moderate Syrian rebel forces from terrorists”.
Russian Federation and the U.S., which support Syria’s government and opposition respectively, are attempting to revive the cessation of hostilities and will co-chair a meeting of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in NY later on Thursday.
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Assad told The Associated Press that the us lacked “the will” to join forces with Russian Federation in fighting extremists and rejected Washington’s claim that an errant USA airstrike last week that killed 62 Syrian troops was accidental.
USA officials stand firm that the strike came from the air, not ground-based artillery or rockets, and that there were no American aircraft in the skies at that time, so Syrian or Russian aircraft remain the only possible culprit.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said dozens of raids had hit the city’s east overnight, as regime troops advanced in Aleppo’s southwestern outskirts.
A ceasefire that went into effect last week in Syria has collapsed, despite last-ditch diplomatic efforts to salvage it. “The next few hours, days maximum are crucial for making it or breaking it”, de Mistura said.
The attack forced the United Nations to suspend all humanitarian convoys across Syria.
Syria’s five-year civil war has left more than 250,000 people dead and displaced more than 11 million others.
“What did they achieve in Syria?” he said.
Kerry called for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes and at a U.N. Security Council session he raised “profound doubt” about the willingness of Russian Federation and Syria to abide by the cease-fire.
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Unlike Kerry, who stressed the importance of Assad’s government ending military operations against rebels and allowing in unfettered aid, Lavrov said the United States had the biggest responsibility.
