“The Syrian army. began the staged withdrawal of vehicles and personnel from the Castello Road to ensure the unimpeded delivery of aid to eastern Aleppo”, said Lieut-Gen Vladimir Savchenko, head of the Russian reconciliation centre in Syria on state television.
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“We can not let days of this reduction of violence to be wasted by not moving forward” on aid deliveries, he added.
Activists say Syria’s cease-fire is still holding despite some violations but aid has not yet reached besieged rebel-held neighborhoods of the northern city of Aleppo.
He says that under the deal, opposition units were supposed to move away in lockstep but have failed to do so.
The ceasefire deal that went into force at sunset on Monday calls for the demilitarisation of the Castello road, and Moscow had earlier said the Syrian army would start pulling back at 0600 GMT (10am UAE time) on Thursday.
The UN envoy for Syria also hailed a “significant drop in violence” over the first 24 hours of the new ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russian Federation.
But hours later Russian military spokesman Igor Konashenkov accused Washington of spinning “rhetorical fog” intended “to hide the fact that it is not fulfilling its part of the obligations”.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, will join his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at the meeting, to be held on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting. Russian Federation is a critical backer of Assad, while the United States and allies have sided with rebel factions seeking Assad’s ouster.
“It’s particularly regrettable because we are losing time”, de Mistura said. The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIL, ISIS or Daesh), the YPG and the PYD are the most active terrorist groups in Syria.
Getting humanitarian aid into besieged parts of the country was one of the agreements reached in the United States and Russia-brokered ceasefire that began on Monday.
Forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad are seen near barricades on the southern side of the Castello road in Aleppo, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on July 28, 2016. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group also reported the government was leaving the area.
De Mistura said some people had used the argument that offices were closed during this week’s Muslim Eid holiday, and the Syrian government had been “a little bit slow” during Eid, but he would not accept that as a valid reason.
But convoys still haven’t been able to get humanitarian aid to those in need – a driving factor for establishing the ceasefire in the first place.
De Mistura and Egeland said that delay was caused by lack of guarantees from all sides of safe and secure access for the convoy.
In the past, government forces have been notorious for stopping aid convoys into other besieged areas and taking out vital supplies like medicine, and the United Nations has been criticised for going along with it.
Egeland echoed those concerns, saying “the bad news is that we are not using this window of opportunity so far to reach all of these places with humanitarian assistance”.
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The UN revealed that two aid convoys, consisting of about 20 trucks transporting mostly food and flour heading towards Aleppo, has been held up since crossing the Turkish border, Reuters reported.
