But Syria’s foreign ministry says it won’t allow any aid to enter the rebel-held side of Aleppo without coordination between the Assad government and the UN.
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Despite the relative calm in the war-torn country, disputes among the warring parties are delaying deliveries of aid.
Russian Federation is a major backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.
“It’s crucially important [that] the necessary security arrangements” are made so the convoy can travel, Mr Ban said. I have been urging the Russian government to make sure that they exercise influence on Syrian government and also the American side to make sure that the Syrian armed groups also fully cooperate.
A pro-opposition monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said pro-regime forces shelled two villages in Aleppo province and a suburb of Damascus as well as conducting airstrikes in northern Hama province since Monday night.
Aided by Russian air power and Shi’ite militias, the Syrian army this month renewed its siege on rebel-held eastern Aleppo, home to at least 250,000 people.
BEIRUT -The UN envoy for Syria says if the cessation of hostilities holds there may be a meeting of the coalition of some 20 countries trying to end the conflict on the sidelines of next week’s gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in NY.
Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters news agency that rebel groups intend to comply with the plan to withdraw 500 metres from the Castello Road in order to make it a neutral space, but the government must also pull back. Before the ceasefire, districts there were regularly targeted by rebel rocket and mortar fire.
Millions of Syrians are in desperate need of assistance, especially in besieged and hard-to-reach areas with severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
However, some 20 trucks carrying U.N aid and destined for rebel-held eastern Aleppo remained in the customs area on the border with Turkey on Wednesday “because of lack of de facto assurances of safe passage by all parties”, Jens Laerke, deputy spokesman for the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told The Associated Press in an email.
‘The struggle with Islamic State continues, ‘ Poznikhir said.
“This recommitment will initially be for 48 hours, and, provided it holds, the United States and Russian Federation will discuss extensions, with the aim of achieving an indefinite extension to lower the violence”, Toner said.
How will the new Syria truce work?
He added that rebels had violated the ceasefire 60 times since it came into force on Monday.
But it appears to have largely held.
But once the joint Russian-US targeting begins, government war planes “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 on Tuesday. It requires both sides to allow unhindered access for humanitarian aid.
In the lead-up to the cease-fire, 40 days of fighting in Aleppo killed almost 700 civilians, including 160 children, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
However, it said it estimated the full death toll to be about 430,000.
Residents in Aleppo have welcomed the lull in the fighting that has ravaged Syria, displacing more than half the population and leaving former economic powerhouse Aleppo divided and destroyed.
Areas of control around AleppoIf the truce holds.
On Wednesday, both Moscow and Washington spoke positively about the deal, with the Kremlin saying it raised hopes for a peaceful solution to the crisis and Kerry arguing it was a “last chance” to keep Syria together.
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September 2013: Kerry and Lavrov negotiate a deal to strip the Syrian government of its chemical weapons in return for the USA backing away from air strikes.
