He added that Russian forces had provided a lot of relief to Assad forces and saved them from a total collapse, turning the “tide of the fighting in his favor”.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia was “sticking to its consistent policy of rendering assistance and aid to the armed forces of Syria in their offensive actions against terrorists and against terrorist organizations”.
However, unless and until the foreign supplies of armaments and jihadists to fight against the government reduces (instead of increasing, such as especially the Saudi and Turkish governments want to do), this decree, the amnesty-offer, won’t have many takers, because anyone who fled in order to avoid military service can then subsequently be called up for military service in the event that the war continues. On Sunday, Amnesty International said attacks on civilian areas had caused some of the most “egregious” war crimes the group had seen in decades.
Nearby, a charred body was carried away on a stretcher by emergency services workers. Witnesses and a monitoring group reported four bomb blasts.
The mood in government-controlled Damascus was tired on Monday.
The truce failed to take effect on Friday as fighting continued in Syria, with Kurdish-led forces backed by US-led air power seizing a key town from the ISIL.
“We have said that we are ready to stop military operations, but the issue relates to more important factors … such as preventing terrorists from using it to improve their positions”, Assad told Spanish newspaper El Pais in an interview.
He also insists that other countries must be prevented from providing logistical support to opposition groups, singling out Turkey.
Various Syrian opposition factions “expressed agreement on the possibility of reaching a temporary truce deal, to be reached through global mediation”, a statement from the High Negotiations Committee said on Saturday adding that Damascus’s allies including Russian Federation must cease fire. First, a guarantee that the government will abide by the ceasefire.
“But… there will not be a truce unless fighting stops simultaneously on the part of all the belligerents, sieges are lifted, humanitarian aid is delivered to those in need, and prisoners, particularly women and children, are released”.
Russian warplanes entered Syria’s increasingly complex five-year-old conflict at the end of September, backing the forces of their ally Assad, and bombing rebel positions.
Ankara fiercely opposes both the regime and the Kurds, who it fears want to unite several Kurdish-majority regions in north and northeast Syria to create their own territory on its border.
Heavy fire in the southern city of Daraa while in eastern Aleppo province, the stronghold of Islamic State, Syria’s army and allies claimed to recapture more ground.
He pointed out that Turkey and Saudi Arabia had no right to intrude into Syrian territory.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary Lavrov and Kerry discussed “current practical cooperation between Russia and the United States in the capacity of co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group in implementing its decisions of February 12, adopted in Munich regarding the measures to ease the humanitarian situation and agree the modalities of terminating hostilities in that country, except for the struggle against terrorist groups”.
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“The secretary expressed his hope that a full cessation of hostilities could be achieved in the shortest timeframe possible”, he said.
