A deal would depend on Moscow using its influence with Syrian President Bashar Assad to persuade him to ground planes and stop the assault on opposition forces.
Advertisement
USA officials had hoped to reach a deal in time for President Obama’s meeting on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in China.
The agreement was to have focused on the city of Aleppo and ways to deliver humanitarian aid to needy civilians.
Islamic State is not present in Aleppo, insurgent sources say, but mainstream rebels and hardline Islamist factions both are, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formally affiliated to al Qaeda until it severed ties with the jihadist movement in July.
Obama said he had instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to continue the negotiations with the Russian side in the hope of reaching a durable ceasefire in Syria. They fired at the auto, forcing two passengers to get out and the driver to blow it up, Bittar said.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blasts, but the Islamic State group has regularly targeted several of the areas hit on Monday. His gains have relied heavily on Russian air support since September past year.
Six explosions hit government-controlled areas and a province held by a Kurdish militia in Syria on Monday morning, killing dozens of people, state media and a monitor said.
The Islamic State group said it also detonated an explosive device in Qamishli, another northeastern city, targeting a group of Kurdish fighters.
More than 290,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, and millions displaced by the fighting. “However, we must ensure that it is an effective agreement”, a senior USA administration official said.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he was working with Russian Federation and the United States to have northern Syria declared a no-fly zone, a proposal that has failed to materialise in the past.
But in talks earlier on Monday, Kerry and Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a truce for the second time in two weeks, with US officials stressing they would walk away if a pact could not be reached soon.
“Clearly these attacks were simultaneous and they all targeted security posts”, he told AFP. The bomb exploded in the government-held Bab Tadmor district. As per the Syrian observatory, four soldiers lost their lives.
State television said at least five people were killed in the “two terrorist blasts on Arzuna bridge, the first a auto bomb and the second a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt when people gathered to help the wounded”.
Advertisement
For his part, Director of al-Basel hospital in Tratous Mohammad Hussein said that the death toll from the twin terrorist bombings has risen to 30 civilians, adding that 43 others were wounded.
