United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, listens during a Security Council meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, at U.N. headquarters. Each has blamed the other for violations.
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The proposal from Kerry signaled that he was not only reasserting his Syria diplomacy but also intensifying it, even in the face of widespread doubts of success.
Members of the Security Council meet to address the situation in Syria, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, at United Nations headquarters. They told the committee the US should not discontinue flying aircraft over Syria.
“Supposedly we all want the same goal”. -Russian brokered cease-fire had failed, and United Nations officials reported many dead and seriously wounded.
“How can people go sit at a table with a regime that bombs hospitals and drops chlorine gas again and again and again and again and again and acts with impunity”, Kerry asked.
Russian Federation has denied responsibility but has offered varying explanations of what might have happened, including the possibility that U.S. aircraft bombed the convoy. Dunford said he sees “no reason to ground our aircraft” and that the US -led coalition needs to maintain pressure on the Islamic State group.
Thursday’s meeting of the International Syria Support Group comes after the two men blamed each other for spoiling the country’s cease-fire that they had agreed to earlier this month.
– On the prospects of a cease-fire: “We announced that we are ready to be committed to any halt of operations, or if you want to call it cease-fire, but it’s not about Syria or Russian Federation; it’s about the United States and the terrorist groups that have been affiliated to ISIS and al-Nusra and al-Qaida, and to the United States and to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia”.
The United States said it believes it was carried out by a Russian-piloted aircraft.
Kerry accused Russia of disobeying the terms of the cease-fire agreement, adding that negotiations can not go anywhere when the Russians are “denying the truth”.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 13 people were killed in the attack, including nine militants, some of them belonging to the Fatah al-Sham Front, an al Qaida-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front. Then, a Russian ambassador said forces were targeting another area.
“This is not a joke”, Kerry exclaimed, urging all to stop the “word games that duck responsibility or avoid the choices … with respect to war and peace, life and death”.
BEIRUT, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Warplanes mounted the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, as Russian Federation and the Syrian government spurned a USA plea to halt flights, burying any hope for the revival of a doomed ceasefire.
A rebel fighter in the Aleppo area said warplanes had been bombing all night in preparation for an attack.
A United States official confirmed a meeting was being set up, and diplomats said it would take place at 2:00pm (1800 GMT) in a NY hotel.
Russian Federation on Thursday rejected Mr. Kerry’s proposal that all combat aircraft be grounded in areas of northern Syria to clear the way for a cease-fire and aid supplies.
The US military did not dispute the strike, but characterized it as “unintentional” and relayed its “regret” to Syria through Russian Federation.
Kerry spoke immediately after Lavrov, whose comments underscored a breakdown in trust since the pair sealed the cease-fire agreement and potential U.S. Much of the worldwide community hailed that outcome, only to watch it unravel amid an upsurge in violence that included an accidental USA strike that killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers.
Kerry proposed that the way forward “out of the carnage” would be a ban on Syrian government forces flying over areas controlled by the opposition. The U.S. and its allies acknowledged the errant strike and have apologized for it. As part of the agreement, the government is expected to loosen its blockade on the neighborhood, offer an amnesty for residents who rebelled, and ultimately reassume control of the area. And in a not-so-subtle jab at Washington, he called Syria’s conflict, as well as those in Iraq and Libya, the “direct consequence” of foreign military interventions and “political engineering”. The proposal reflected the Obama administration’s lack of alternatives for dealing with the convoluted conflict in Syria, which has left roughly a half-million people dead, helped create the worst refugee crisis since World War II and will become part of President Obama’s legacy.
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Lavrov on Wednesday mentioned the possibility of a three-day period of “silence”. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
