Russian and USA officials met in Geneva on Monday to try to extend the truce, and the International Syria Support Group – the countries backing the Syria peace process – was scheduled to meet on Tuesday in NY to assess the agreement.
Advertisement
Update at 11pm: A Syrian activist monitoring group says that 12 aid workers and truck drivers were killed when their humanitarian aid convoy was hit by airstrikes in Aleppo province.
The next phase was securing assurances of safe passage from government and rebel forces who were controlling the Castello road, the main route into eastern Aleppo.
The ICRC says it also delivered materials to fix the town’s water network as well as hygiene products.
The general command of the armed forces blamed rebel groups for folding the ceasefire in a statement carried by Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, saying they had “a real chance to stop the bloodshed”. Yet despite the deal, the Syrian coalition accuses the regime of blocking humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in dire need who are suffering due to the ongoing Syrian civil war.
The State Department said Monday that it was ready to work with Russian Federation to strengthen the terms of the agreement and expand deliveries of humanitarian aid.
“This was a hard and trying day in Syria that raises very serious questions about whether the Russians can deliver their end of the arrangement”, a senior USA administration official told reporters.
Kerry said Russian Federation had not kept its side of the ceasefire agreement, because it had failed to ensure conditions for the delivery of food relief.
“We’re still in the relatively early stages of determining what happened in this instance”, a unidentified USA official told the congressional blog.
Spokesman John Kirby noted the Syrian announcement while stressing that the U.S. and Russian Federation agreed to the arrangement, but the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad has not.
The ceasefire is the second negotiated by Washington and Moscow since Russian Federation joined the war in September 2015. Dozens of soldiers were killed, according to the regime, which has been battling ISIS in Deir Ezzor for more than two years.
The Syrian military had also yet to announce an extension of its seven-day “regime of calm”, which it said expired at midnight. Rebels said that plan would amount to the government declaring the truce over.
The agreement, negotiated by top diplomats from government backer Russian Federation and the United States, saw an initial drop in fighting across the country after it came into force on September 12.
He didn’t explain whether this means Moscow is opting out of the cease-fire and giving the Syrian government the free hand to freely use force again.
The current tensions come on the heels of the weekend air strike by the US -led coalition on Syrian army positions near Deir el-Zour.
The U.S. military has said it may have unintentionally struck Syrian troops while carrying out a raid against the Islamic State group on Saturday.
The fragile truce collapsed after accusations of breaches on both sides.
A United States airstrike on Syrian forces on Saturday also caused trouble. Australian and Danish warplanes were involved in that attack on Syrian army positions.
American officials said, however, that conditions were still not right for U.S. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 29 children and teenagers were among those killed, as well as 17 women. Tensions flared anew when on Saturday, a USA -led coalition airstrike killed 60 Syrian soldiers by the Russians’ count. The cease-fire does not include IS and al-Qaida-linked militants.
In the wake of the Syrian military declaration, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the first stage of the truce – which called for a week of calm and the delivery of humanitarian aid to several besieged communities – had never really come to fruition.
The U.S. military said it would not intentionally hit Syrian troops, and that it came as it was conducting a raid on IS positions. It added that the military, which refers to all armed opponents as terrorists, had shown great restraint in the face of 300 truce violations by insurgents. The ceasefire, which lasted a week, was part of an agreement brokered by the United States and Russian Federation.
The first five days following the introduction of the agreement provided merciful relief for Syrian civilians, especially the hundreds of thousands trapped in rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
“Clearly, it would not be the practice of the United States [to say] those are Syrian forces, but they are prisoners, so it’s OK to hit them”, the official said.
Advertisement
The Turkish leader said on Monday that the offensive will last until the area “is no longer a threat” to Turkey.
