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Syria meeting breaks up without plan to restore truce

-Russia brokered truce expired, according to the state news agency SANA.

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Aleppo has seen some of the bitterest fighting in recent months, including the recent bombing of a United Nations convoy that killed at least 12 aid workers and 20 civilians.

Kerry sharply criticized Russian Federation for supporting the Syrian government.

Kerry said the strike, which killed about 20 civilians and destroyed 18 aid trucks, raised “profound doubt” about whether Russian Federation and its Syrian ally were committed to upholding a ceasefire.

But even as Kerry vowed to press on with all efforts to find a peaceful solution to the war between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s Russian-backed government and USA -backed rebels, the American acknowledged the current strategy wasn’t working.

The diametrically opposed views of Washington and Moscow were on full display at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday that had originally been called to enshrine the truce.

On Tuesday, the two diplomats met with more than a dozen Arab and European foreign ministers, hoping to hold on to what might be salvageable from a week of relative calm in Syria.

Kerry accused Russia of disobeying the terms of the cease-fire agreement, adding that negotiations can not go anywhere when the Russians are “denying the truth”.

A senior U.S. State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters: “The ball is very much in the Russians’ court to come back to us with some ideas that are serious, that would be above and beyond the types of things they have been willing to agree to in the past with regard to air activities over large parts of Syria”.

United States officials believe Russian aircraft were responsible for the strike but Moscow denied involvement. Then, a Russian ambassador said forces were targeting another area.

The source insisted that, given the current situation, it is necessary for Russian Federation to do something “extraordinary” in order to stop the Syrian regime’s aerial bombardment.

“This is not a joke”, Kerry exclaimed, urging all to stop the “word games that duck responsibility or avoid the choices. with respect to war and peace, life and death”.

US officials believe Russian aircraft were responsible for the strike, but Moscow has denied involvement and the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that a US Predator drone was in the area when the convoy was attacked.

U.S. State Department Spokesman John Kirby said that Washington was “outraged” by the incident.

The Russian defence ministry has said that a USA drone appeared to be above the convoy several minutes before it caught fire.

Asked whether arming the Syrian Kurds is a viable military option, despite the Turkish government’s opposition, Dunford said “reinforcing” the Syrian Democratic Forces’ military capabilities “will increase the prospects of our success” in enabling the recapture of Raqqa, the defacto Islamic State capital in Syria. He called for the U.N.to expand its terrorism list to include groups at the fringes of a USA -backed rebel umbrella group and called Washington’s errant strike an “outrageous violation”. “We also have to get assurances in the east Aleppo case from the armed opposition groups to enter”, he said of the divided northern city. And he declared Syria’s conflict, as well as that of Iraq, Libya and other unstable nations, the “direct consequence” of foreign military interventions in the region.

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Lavrov had sought a three-day pause in fighting to revive the cease-fire.

U.S. and Russia Play Blame Game Over Syria Cease Fire Breaches