The accord included a truce to start across Syria at sunset on Monday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival.
Advertisement
Iran has welcomed a Russia-US mediated ceasefire agreement in Syria aimed at putting an end to more than five years of deadly conflict gripping the Arab country.
It remained unclear what Iran, a key ally of Mr Assad, made of the deal.
On Saturday, presumed Russian or government airstrikes on rebel-held Idlib and Aleppo provinces killed over 90 civilians, including 13 children in an attack on a marketplace in Idlib, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The UK’s special representative for Syria Gareth Bayley called the attacks “barbaric”.
A day of intense airstrikes Saturday on and around the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 45 people, according to opposition activists. “This is why we are not supportive of the ceasefire at all”.
Syria’s state news agency SANA says the government accepts the agreement.
And Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi backed the deal on Sunday.
“The continuation and sustainability of a ceasefire relies on the creation of a comprehensive monitoring mechanism, in particular control of borders in order to stop the dispatch of fresh terrorists, as well as weapons and financial resources for the terrorists”, he said.
“We hope this will be the beginning of the end of the civilians’ ordeal”, HNC member Bassma Kodmani said.
Still, a senior official inside Ahrar al-Sham said rebels would nevertheless abide by the cease-fire to regroup after a punishing conflict with pro-government forces over Aleppo.
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, one of the most powerful factions in Syria, is part of the Fatah Army coalition that played an instrumental role in the fighting against Assad’s forces over the past year in northern Syria.
New Zealand is welcoming the ceasefire in Syria and acknowledging the work US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did to achieve it.
The army attacked rebel-held areas, pushing to maximize recent gains before a new nationwide ceasefire was due to come into effect on Monday.
– It “requires forces from both sides to pull back from Castello Road” to the north of the battleground city to “create a demilitarised zone around it, permitting as quickly as possible the resumption of humanitarian and civilian traffic along that road”. ‘It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al Qaeda, to target al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, which is Nusra, an organisation that is opposed to a peaceful transition, an organisation that is an enemy of the legitimate opposition, an organisation that is now plotting attacks beyond Syria’s borders, including against the United States’.
Rebels now face the “biggest and most momentous decision since they chose to take up arms against the Assad regime in 2011”, he said.
The surge in violence came hours after the United States and Russia’s top diplomats announced the ceasefire agreement after 13 hours of talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Advertisement
Back in February, a cessation of hostilities in Syria negotiated between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov fell apart within weeks.
