Two convoys of aid for the Syrian city of Aleppo were waiting in no-man’s land on Wednesday after crossing the Turkish border, as disagreements between warring sides and security fears held up deliveries on the third day of a ceasefire.
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These types of violations are not uncommon, and it’s not necessarily a measure of success in a ceasefire since brief respites in violence can help get humanitarian aid to those who desperately need it. A day earlier, the government said rebels had targeted the Castello road, the only remaining artery by which aid reaches the eastern, rebel section of Aleppo.
The Syrian army has said the truce will be applied throughout Syria for seven days, but that it reserves the right to respond decisively to any violation by armed groups.
Sabra said it was too early to talk about resuming peace talks, and that this hinged on the implementation of humanitarian clauses of a United Nations resolution passed a year ago.
A senior United States official said Washington was doing all it could to ensure the United Nations convoy safe access.
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.
The ceasefire, which went into effect on Monday, has led to a significant reduction in violence.
Humanitarian agencies are closely watching developments, poised to distribute much-needed aid to besieged areas, but say they are awaiting security guarantees to proceed with the delivery.
The truce, which began at sundown on Monday, was agreed after marathon US-Russia talks in Geneva between Lavrov and Kerry last Friday as the latest part of efforts to end a five-year conflict that has killed more than 300,000 people.
An activist from the Aleppo Media Center told CNN that he read Assad’s presence in a formerly opposition-held area as a sign to “that this could be our fate someday”.
If the lull in violence continues for seven consecutive days and if humanitarian access is sustained during that span, the US and Russian Federation “would begin coordinating with Russian Federation on airstrikes specifically targeting Nusra in a strategic, very calculated way”, Toner said.
One of Syria’s most powerful factions, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham’s battlefield alliance with other insurgent groups makes it hard for the United States to target them without the danger of inflicting harm on other opposition groups.
The U.S. urged Syrian rebel factions to distance themselves from the group. The raids, he said, had killed 250 people and destroyed up to 15 trucks containing heavy machine guns. But human rights groups monitoring the situation reported several airstrikes in the Aleppo region and near Raqqa, ISIS’ de facto capital, just days after the truce took effect.
The cessation of hostilities was brokered by the USA and Russian Federation – the second attempt this year by Washington and Moscow to bring the war to an end.
A nationwide cease-fire in Syria is largely preventing the wide-scale violence previously experienced in the country, the State Department said Tuesday.
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The Syrian civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than 5 million to flee the country, spawning an worldwide refugee crisis.
