There were no further details on the nature of the Turkish strikes but they probably involved artillery fire from tanks.
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“Perhaps most urgently”, Kerry added, “the United States and Europe are at the forefront of facing what has become a defining challenge of our generation: the fight against violent extremism”.
The US government has said Assad was “deluded” if he thought he could solve the conflict with military force.
Another week of fighting would give Syria’s government and its Russian, Lebanese and Iranian allies time to press on with the encirclement of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, which they are now on the verge of capturing.
His comments and strong words from US Secretary of State John Kerry underscored deep US-Russian disagreements over Syria.
Global divisions over the crisis in Syria surfaced at a Munich conference aimed at ending the civil war, just a day after world powers agreed on the “cessation of hostilities” due to begin in a week’s time.
The agreement, which would allow the immediate delivery of much needed food, water and medical supplies to Syrian civilians, is not being called a cease-fire, which Kerry described as a more permanent step.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, and UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on February 11, 2016, at the Hilton Hotel join Munich, Germany. A senior figure in the Army of Islam, Mohammed Alloush, is the opposition group’s chief negotiator in Geneva. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, when asked yesterday to assess the chances of the “cessation of hostilities” deal succeeding, replied: “49 per cent”.
According to the FM, it’s important for the USA to cooperate with Russian Federation in Syria as Moscow “has certain influence on Damascus”. But Lavrov complained coordination hasn’t gone beyond an agreement to avoid in-air incidents.
He said he supported peace talks, but that negotiations do “not mean that we stop fighting terrorism”. “Why not yesterday? For the simple reason that the modalities have to be worked out”, Kerry said, “and for the simple reason that people have to be communicated to in order to not have it start with failure”.
At the Munich security conference on Saturday, Russia’s Assad-allied strategy in Syria drew sharp criticism from worldwide officials, revealing divisions and disagreements on the world stage outside of Syrian borders.
About the recent dispute between Turkey and the U.S. over Washington’s objection to describing the Syrian group PYD as a terrorist organization, which instead classified it as “a reliable partner”, Kalin said: “The PYD and YPG [military wing of the PYD] serve as a client of the U.S., Russian Federation and Assad regime all at once, receiving weapons, ammunition, intelligence and air cover from them”.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Friday that “there is no change” in contacts between the U.S. and Russian forces in Syria and that cooperation would remain limited to exchanging information to prevent accidents in the sky. “Russia’s targeting must change”. News of the shelling came after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey would not hesitate to act in Syria if it faced a threat from Syrian Kurdish forces.
It remains unclear whether fighters in Syria will adhere to a truce.
Government troops fire on Isis forces near Mahin, Syria.
Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV says troops are now overlooking the town of Hayan and parts of the town of Anadan.
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The push is one of the most significant regime advances since the conflict began in March 2011 with protests against Assad’s government, before spiralling into a bloody war that has killed more than 260,000 people.
