Syria’s Russian-backed military pressed ahead with airstrikes and shelling aimed at Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern sector – an offensive whose start was announced by the government on Thursday even as senior diplomats were holding talks in NY aimed at reviving a cease-fire that collapsed earlier this week.
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Unlike Kerry, who stressed the importance of Assad’s government ending military operations against rebels and allowing in unfettered aid, Lavrov said the U.S. had the biggest responsibility.
Twenty people died after an airstrike destroyed an aid convoy in rebel-held Urm al Kubra, near Aleppo, on Monday night.
Ammar al Selmo, the head of civil defense rescue service in opposition-held Aleppo, said three of its four centers in Aleppo had been hit.
Its collapse, the same fate as all previous efforts to halt a 5-1/2-year-old war that has killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians, has doomed what may be the final bid for a peace breakthrough before President Barack Obama leaves office.
Syrian forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad at a military complex in southwestern Aleppo on September 5.
The air campaign overnight came after Syria’s military command announced it was launching operations in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern quarters, raising concerns of imminent ground operations.
Battles in Aleppo have raged over the past few months between the Syrian army and an array of rebel groups.
Kerry says the USA will continue pushing for a negotiated truce and political transition that can end five years of war.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which had erupted as part of the “Arab Spring” uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
The ceasefire deal suffered two blows in the last week.
Russia has denied carrying out the strike, instead charging that the convoy was hit by a “terrorists’ pickup truck carrying a large-caliber mortar”, according to Russian state news agency Tass.
Lavrov said the Syrian opposition needed to take steps toward a compromise.
Cluster bombs have left entire streets in flames after the Syrian government announced a major offensive on rebel-held areas. “I don’t think it’s asking for much”, he added.
More Syria talks were set later Friday in NY, but Russian Federation and the United States appeared far apart on conditions for reviving the truce, let alone addressing the larger conflict.
However, emerging from a meeting that he said was “intense”, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s response to a proposal for grounding planes as “not satisfying”.
Amid deep pessimism over whether the truce could be resurrected, the group was to consider a US call for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes following an attack on a humanitarian convoy near the besieged city of Aleppo and a Russian suggestion for a three-day pause in fighting to get the so-called “cessation of hostilities” back on track.
Recovering full control of the rebels’ last significant urban area would be the most important victory of the war so far for Assad, strengthening his control over Syria’s most populous and strategically important regions.
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The Syrian air force, since Monday has stepped up its bombing of rebel-held areas, and both Russian Federation and Syria have been implicated in the attack on the relief convoy which has been deemed a potential war crime by the UN.
