But in the build-up to the start of the truce at sunset, government forces and their allies bombed opposition areas in the country’s north, while Al Qaeda-linked militants pushed on with an offensive in southern Syria.
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But there were no reports of deaths or injuries. A Turkish official said they were mostly carrying food and flour.
The truce has been in effect for 24 hours and since this time the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura relays that the situation has improved rapidly and notes that aid access should soon become available to several regions, including Aleppo, which is the portion of the city held by rebel forces and is under blockade.
US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Washington it was “far too early to draw conclusions” about the success of the ceasefire, but said initial reports of the first two hours suggested “some reduction” in violence. “As I speak, that has not been the case”, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in Geneva.
“We need to do more homework”.
Special U.S. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said Tuesday that the cease-fire, agreed to last Friday between the United States and Russian Federation and which entered into force on Monday, has meant a significant reduction in violence in the country, with just a few “geographically isolated” incidents.
If it does happen, however, USA officials said the cooperation would be a sharply limited and carefully controlled exchange of very basic targeting information that would protect US intelligence gathering and tactics, and involve detailed vetting to ensure that any proposed Russian strikes would hit Islamic State or al-Qaida-linked combatants, not the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The Syrian government has expressed its readiness to set up a demilitarized zone around the Castello road to Aleppo which is a key tract for humanitarian aid convoys, the Russian Reconciliation Center reported.
Ahmad al-Masalmeh, an opposition activist in the contested city of Daraa, said calm had prevailed over the city since 4 p.m., but observers elsewhere in the country reported fighting all the way up to and after the start of the cease-fire. It calls for a halt in hostilities between Assad’s government forces and rebel groups, and it paves the way for the delivery of humanitarian relief.
Ban said Wednesday he has been in touch with the Russian government, urging them to exercise influence on the Syrian government to let the trucks in.
He said: “I think all our troops will go away from Nusra especially in seven days’ time because then Russian Federation and the United States [will be] co-operating and Nusra becomes a target like Isis”.
“It is hard to accept a continued intermingling and cooperation between the opposition and an organization which is al-Qaeda in Syria”, a senior U.S. official said late Tuesday, adding that the rebel movement would have to “distance itself” if the ceasefire holds. About 11 million people have been made homeless in the world’s worst refugee crisis.
United Nations special envoy Staffan de Mistura said the ceasefire agreement signed last week clearly stated that the government should simply be notified of aid entering the city.
Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position after a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover from the war. The Israeli military, however, denied the claim.
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The initial 48-hour truce came into force at 7:00 pm local time (1600 GMT) across Syria except in areas held by jihadists like the Islamic State group. -Russian targeting of such groups.
