Tuesday’s gathering of the top USA and Russian diplomats, and more than a dozen of their Arab and European counterparts, ended with ritual reaffirmation of a cease-fire that has all but disintegrated, and promises of future negotiations.
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Jan Egeland, humanitarian aid coordinator in the office of the United Nations envoy for Syria, told The Associated Press in a text message that the convoy was “bombarded”.
A mistaken attack by coalition airpower that killed dozens of Syrian troops, as well as fresh airstrikes in Aleppo and Idlib, have led to bitter exchanges between Washington and Moscow. The Homs governor said the plan had been postponed from Monday to Tuesday.
But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed Russian accusations Sunday during an interview with CNN.
President Bashar al-Assad on Monday accused the United States of “flagrant aggression” for the attack on its forces in Deir Ezzor.
Activists and rebel groups also accuse the government of violating the cease-fire.
“What happened today has dealt a serious blow to efforts to bring peace to Syria”, said a senior U.S. administration official, who added that the strike “raises very serious questions about whether the Russians can deliver their end of the arrangement” to rein in the Syrian regime.
But both the Syrian army and the rebels spoke openly of returning to the battlefield.
The US State Department blamed Moscow and the Syrian regime for hampering the delivery of aid.
“Fighting the Islamic State is not their priority”.
Asked whether he expected aid to reach rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo, he said: “There is no hope”.
But it has faced enormous challenges from the outset, including how to disentangle nationalist rebels backed by the West from jihadists who are not covered by the deal. In his interview, the U.S. secretary of state put the blame for the holdup on Assad and Moscow – which is supporting the Syrian leader as a legitimate authority – while USA wants him stripped of power.
The row erupted amid mounting reports of ceasefire violations – including air strikes by Syrian government forces on rebel held areas of the beleaguered city of Aleppo.
Already widely violated since it took effect, the ceasefire came under added strain at the weekend when Russian Federation said jets from the US-led coalition against Islamic State killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in eastern Syria.
Thomas said he had few new details about the airstrike Monday that hit a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid.
The World Food Programme said it had enough flour on the convoy to feed 78,000 people for a month.
Although the ceasefire appeared to initially reduce the amount of violence in hard-hit areas like Aleppo, the delivery of humanitarian aid was delayed for security reasons.
An MoD spokesman said: “We can confirm that the United Kingdom participated in the coalition air strike south of Dayr az Zawr on Saturday, and we are fully co-operating with the coalition investigation”.
The Syrian Coalition, the principal opposition, blames “Russian and the Assad regime’s jet fighters’ and said it holds “Russia fully and directly responsible for this heinous crime”.
“For more than a week, we have urged Moscow to fulfill the commitments it made in Geneva to facilitate the unimpeded flow of humanitarian aid to the Syrian people”, the department said in a statement.
Earlier Mr Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that the truce was “holding but fragile”. “So far it’s only a Russian report”.
Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said on Sunday the air strikes aimed to sink the U.S.
It came under massive strain on Saturday when a US-led coalition strike hit a Syrian army post near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where government forces are battling the Islamic State jihadist group. Rebels reportedly hold the area.
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Ibrahim Alhaj told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Syrian civilians will pay the price for the decision.
