U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says humanitarian aid to Syrians is being held up by a lack of security arrangements despite a Russia-U.S. brokered cease-fire deal.
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Russian Federation is urging Syrian rebels to separate themselves from “terrorists” to ensure that the Russia-U.S. -brokered cease-fire continues to hold in Syria, where a relative calm has prevailed since the truce went into effect two days ago.
The truce that began at sundown on Monday, agreed after marathon US-Russia talks in Geneva last week, is part of the latest bid to end a five-year conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people.
Peace appeared to be holding Tuesday, with no major violence reported on the first full day of a hard-won ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russian Federation.
Russian Federation said it had recorded 60 rebel violations, but senior military officer Viktor Poznikhir said Moscow was calling “for the extension of the cessation of hostilities on all Syrian territory for 48 hours”.
As the truce largely holds, the Pentagon said Tuesday it launched various strikes on DAESH in Syria over the past several days, including hits on some targets that “may have resulted in civilian casualties”.
However, Poznikhir said there were doubts about whether the USA would be able to fulfill its pledge to persuade the opposition to sever links with Fatah al-Sham, formerly al Qaeda’s Syria branch the Nusra front.
As of Wednesday, U.N. convoys were still waiting on the Syrian government to issue transit papers authorizing aid workers to pass through government lines into rebel-held areas of the city.
Rebel fighters ride a vehicle in Jubata al-Khashab, in Quneitra countryside, Syria Sept. 11, 2016.
The government of President Bashar al-Assad says it will only allow aid coordinated through itself and the United Nations to reach Aleppo.
On Monday, Kerry initially said the United States and Russian Federation could permit President Bashar Assad’s government to launch new airstrikes against Al Qaeda-linked militants under the arrangement.
However, prominent Syrian opposition politician George Sabra said the many violations of a previous truce had undermined confidence in the current ceasefire, adding that it was too early to talk about a resumption of peace talks that were abandoned in April.
Supplies are in warehouses ready for transportation to rebel-held east Aleppo and other besieged areas as soon as they are cleared to enter, said spokeswoman Krista Armstrong of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Once the joint Russian-US targeting begins, however, government warplanes “will no longer be able to fly in any areas of Syria where there is opposition or Al-Nusra Front presence”, a senior US administration official said.
Staffan de Mistura said the meeting of the International Syria Support Group – which includes regional and world powers and Syria’s neighbors – may be held before a ministerial meeting of the UN Security Council on Syria on September 21.
Swanson said it was unlikely security concerns would be resolved within the coming hours, allowing the convoys to move.
The lull in violence was a rare respite for residents of the war-ravaged country, where more than half the population has been displaced and hundreds of thousands live under siege. “Some groups are looking to gain political mileage out of this, and this is something we need to put aside”, he said.
But the opposition’s Sabra blamed Damascus, saying the government’s insistence on controlling aid was obstructing its delivery to Aleppo under the agreement.
The regime said it would disallow aid that had not been co-ordinated with Damascus and the UN.
“In other words, no bombs and more trucks”, he said.
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“Today, calm appears to have prevailed across Hama, latakia, Aleppo city and rural Aleppo and Idlib, with only some allegations of sporadic and geographically isolated incidents”, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, said in a news conference in Geneva.
