United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said Thursday’s failed talks were “long, painful and disappointing” and warned of escalating violence on the ground.
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When asked what the Obama administration’s next steps in Syria would be, one official answered candidly, “This is something we’re giving a lot of thought to ourselves”.
But he had a less rosy view of events on the ground.
His government is “committed morally toward the Syrian people, morally, constitutionally, and legally, to help them in every aspect to have the basic needs for their livelihood”, he said. “The next few hours, days maximum, are crucial”.
The air campaign overnight came after Syria’s military command announced it was launching operations in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern quarters, raising concerns of imminent ground operations. The western portion of the city is controlled by the governments and the eastern area is rebel controlled.
Rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo had already suffered large-scale fires after a night of bombardment from what activists called phosphorous bombs.
Aleppo was once Syria’s commercial and industrial hub but has been ravaged by fighting and roughly divided between government control in the west and rebel control in the east since mid-2012. Like all previous ceasefires, this deal collapsed as well, prolonging the five-and-a-half year old war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced half the population in the country. What we know are two Russian aircraft were in that area at that time.
“Absent a major gesture like this, we don’t believe there is a point in making more promises or issuing more plans or announcing something that can’t be enforced or reached”, Mr Kerry said. Moscow and Damascus both deny involvement in the attack on the aid convoy, accusing “terrorists” – the name given by the Assad regime to all that oppose it – of having carried it out.
“We exchanged some ideas and we had a little bit of progress”.
SOHR said the pro-Assad initiative to empty districts of civilians would clear the way for bombing campaigns which would prevent global accusations about the killing of innocent civilians.
“Forty trucks are sitting at the Turkish-Syrian border”.
Syria declared the week-long ceasefire over on Monday.
A senior United States administration official said America believes that a Russian-piloted aircraft carried out the strike.
However, the truce effectively collapsed after a week when an aid convoy was bombed on Monday, killing some 20 people.
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The initial targets were the Amiriyah, Sukari and Sheikh Said sectors, to the south, said the monitoring group’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman.
