The government of President Bashar Assad is holding up deliveries of aid in violation of the deal struck last week by Russian Federation and the United States, the UN mediator for Syria said Thursday.
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The government had approved aid deliveries to those locations before the cessation of hostilities but had failed to issue a single letter of authorization, Egeland said.
He added, however, “What really matters here is that the president of the United States supports this agreement, and our system of government works in such a way that everyone follows what the president says”. “We are losing time, these are days which we should have used for convoys to move with the permit to go because there is no fighting”.
Russian Federation said Syrian government troops had begun to withdraw from Castello Road on the outskirts of Aleppo – the route through which the trucks will pass – on Thursday but this has not been independently confirmed.
The nature of the cease-fire itself is fragile, with several reported violations, and sparring between the US and Russian Federation over the extent of their military cooperation-a precondition of the cease-fire agreement-against ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.
Of major concern at the moment is the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, controlled by armed opposition groups and under siege since government forces cut off its main supply road, Castello Road, through constant shelling and airstrikes.
However, insurgent groups in Aleppo said they still had not seen the army withdrawing from the Castello Road, needed to allow aid deliveries into the city, and would not pull back from their own positions near the road until they did.
The “bad news”, he said, was a lack of a green light for United Nations trucks to cross front lines.
“The secretary made clear that the United States will not establish the Joint Implementation Centre with Russian Federation unless and until the agreed terms for humanitarian access are met”, Kirby said, referring to a U.S.
The opposition has yet to officially sign the deal, and hours before the ceasefire began Assad said he was committed to recovering all of Syria.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian office, said the aid convoys were awaiting assurances of safety in Syria’s volatile northwest.
The demilitarisation of the road, to allow for unimpeded aid deliveries and civilian movement, is a key plank of the US-Russian deal.
Mr Bogdanov said the current deal was “the only plan on the table”. Demilitarisation of Castello Road is key to allowing further humanitarian access, USA officials have said. “The area is calm now and with the truce things will be much better”.
However, another senior commander said rebel forces were not obeying the order to clear out of the Castello road area.
Elsehwere in the same province, an airstrike Thursday on the IS-held town of Mayadeen killed at least four people and wounded dozens, said opposition activists and Deir el-Zour 24, an activist collective.
The U.N says some 20 trucks carrying U.N aid and destined for rebel-held Aleppo remained in the customs area on the border with Turkey on Wednesday.
Also not included in the truce is the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, the Fatah al-Sham Front which was formerly known as the Nusra Front.
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The Syria cease-fire deal struck by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is created to bring a pause to the civil war so that the superpowers’ militaries can be jointly concentrated against the Islamic extremist groups operating within the chaos on the ground.
