He said there has been a reduction in violence in its first hours and said it offers an opportunity for peace.
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The seven-day ceasefire, beginning with a 48-hour truce, went into effect Monday “at sundown” in Damascus.
The ceasefire, negotiated by the United States and Russian Federation, appears to be holding in its early stages, although many observers believe its efficacy will only become clearer as Tuesday progresses.
According to the deal, aid access to the country’s many besieged and “hard-to-reach” areas is set to begin, with government and rebel forces ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access in particular to Aleppo city.
David Miliband has said that the current ceasefire in the Syrian civil war has “a better short-term chance of a decent lull in the fighting than has ever happened before”.
The Syrian Kurds announced they were adhering to the truce yesterday, though not, presumably, when it comes to fighting Isis, which is excluded from the ceasefire.
At the White House Monday, spokesman Josh Earnest said the success of the agreement “places a lot of pressure on Russian Federation to deliver”. Aleppo-based activist Baraa al-Halaby said no aid deliveries, which are also part of the cease-fire deal, have entered the contested area.
The truce does not apply to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as Al-Nusra Front.
On Monday, a ceasefire began in Syria at sunset, marking what CNN said could be a move that would “halt the carnage in the war-torn country”.
Russia’s intervention in the Syrian war a year ago has tilted it in Mr Assad’s favour, after rebel advances had posed a growing threat to his rule.
Just hours before the ceasefire started, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave a defiant message to the country’s opposition forces.
But many activists and Syrians, especially those living in rebel-held areas, remain skeptical of the latest peace deal.
With the truce agreed between Russian Federation and the United States set to begin at sunset, Mr Assad attended Eid al-Adha prayers at a mosque in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus. “But that will be on strikes that are agreed upon with Russian Federation and the United States in order to go after them”.
Instead, Kerry stressed the importance of Assad’s government living “up to its obligations and to work with us”, suggesting the Syrian leader could transform himself from worldwide pariah to potential peace partner.
In the hours before the ceasefire, Syrian air force planes continued to bomb – having killed 90 civilians in Idlib province and Aleppo on Saturday – and al-Qaeda-linked groups conducted an offensive in the south of Syria.
“It’s in the general interest of the Syrian people to stop the rivers of blood, and stopping bloodshed is the first step”, said one Syrian in Aleppo. Such an agreement would prevent Assad from bombing civilians or opposition groups, as government forces have done during past cessations of hostilities, Kerry said.
The Local Coordination Committees monitoring group reported airstrikes on the Aleppo neighborhoods and suburbs of Rashiddine, Salihine, and Jazmata.
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The great difficulty is going to come down to the future of President Assad, because obviously in the West he is perceived as someone who has not just murdered many of his own citizens but has radicalized those who are still there…
