The statement added that it would take effect at 1 a.m. local time on Thursday.
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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to join de Mistura, Syrian opposition official Riad Hijab and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault for the talks to be held near Berlin’s Lake Tegel.
The presence of the al-Qaeda affiliate has been a big problem in the city, as they were previously, deliberately excluded to the ceasefire, which meant all factions could attack them freely without violating the ceasefire.
On Sunday, May 1, Kerry flew to Geneva for talks with United Nations peace envoy Staffan de Mistura, who in turn went to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The UN humanitarian advisor said,”It is a disgrace to see while the population of Aleppo is bleeding there options to flee have never been more hard than now”. A new round of UN-backed peace talks is set to start on May 10 in Geneva.
“There is a Nusra presence in Aleppo”, a senior State Department official said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Syrian refugees wait to enter Jordanian side of the Hadalat border crossing, a military zone east of the capital Amman, after arriving from Syria, yesterday.
A coalition of rebel groups fighting under the name “Fatah Halab” (Aleppo Conquest) launched the assault on the government’s defensive lines in the west of the city on Tuesday by detonating a tunnel bomb, the AFP news agency reported.
Worldwide aid organizations say Jordan must speed up refugee entry procedures because of dire conditions, including inadequate shelter, along the border.
“The horrific fighting and bombardment in recent days, especially in and around Aleppo, is creating new areas with endless suffering and no access for humanitarians”, Jan Egeland, who heads an global humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said in Geneva. A formal announcement was expected later Wednesday.
The ceasefire took effect at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday in Damascus, and Toner said the US and Russian Federation are working to ensure it is closely monitored.
Intense fighting continued in the city, and hospitals in both rebel and government-held areas were hit, amid some of the worst civilian casualties of the war.
Last week, Russian Federation and the USA agreed on a temporary “freeze” in fighting in Eastern Ghouta and in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia.
Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011 after anti-government protests were put down, escalating into a multi-front war with consequences including the seizure of large parts of the country by the jihadist Islamic State group. “I don’t think Assad is going to benefit from that”, he added.
But Kerry said he still hoped diplomatic efforts could restore a nationwide February 27 ceasefire to include Aleppo, which has felt the brunt of increased fighting in recent weeks.
Ayrault said it is “a awful drama … in which the regime in Damascus bears the entire responsibility for what is happening – the threatening of the cease-fire”. The rebel offensive, Churkin said, derailed a U.S.
Russian Federation meanwhile said it had withdrawn about 30 aircraft from its airbase in Syria. Russia, he said, has been seeking since October “to establish this kind of cooperation, and unfortunately it has taken more than six months to achieve”.
My question to you on Wednesday is again: how many more deaths, how much more suffering can we tolerate before there is a collective push towards an end to this senseless and shameful crisis affecting Syrians, their neighbours and many more people beyond? the Emergency Relief Coordinator asked.
Syrian state media say three people have been killed in renewed rebel shelling of government-held areas in the deeply contested northern city of Aleppo.
Assad’s government has made several attempts to wrest control of a portion of Aleppo and the rest of the province still under rebel control.
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Almost 300 people have been killed during this latest spate of violence in the city.
