Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday that it was pleased with the deal, which is to take effect on Monday, coinciding with the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.
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Kerry acknowledged “confusion” between Nusra and “legitimate opposition groups” that had led to a “fraying” of a ceasefire that was shepherded earlier this year by the USA and Russian Federation and brought a badly-needed, if temporary, respite to Syrian civilians for several weeks.
The efforts of Russia and United States on Syria have not been in vain, and Moscow thanks the US delegation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday after talks with US State Secretary John Kerry, TASS reported. The latest discussions followed several attempts to pin down a deal over the last two weeks.
The proposed level of U.S.
Lavrov said through a translator, “The Syrian government has been informed of these arrangements and is ready to fulfill them”. That sets off a seven-day period that will allow for humanitarian aid and civilian traffic into Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and commercial capital, which has faced a recent onslaught.
Getting Assad’s government and rebel groups to comply with the deal may now be more hard as fighting rages around Aleppo, Syria’s most populous city and the new focus of a war that has killed as many as 500,000 people. “That should put an end to the barrel bombs, and an end to the indiscriminate bombing, and it has the potential to change the nature of the conflict”. Then, the USA and Russian Federation would begin intelligence sharing and targeting coordination, while Assad’s air and ground forces would no longer be permitted to target Nusra any longer; they would be restricted to operations against the Islamic State. During this time, opposition fighters will have the chance to separate from militant groups in areas, such as Aleppo, where they have become intermingled.
Fighting forces are to also pull back from the Castello Road, a key thoroughfare and access route into Aleppo, and create a “demilitarized zone” around it.
“President Obama has gone the extra mile here in order to try to find a way if possible to end the carnage on the ground in Syria”, Kerry said. “Not indiscriminately, but in a strategic, precise and judicious manner so they can not continue to use the regime’s indiscriminate bombing to rally people to their hateful crimes”.
Washington must persuade Syrian rebels to break ranks with Fath al-Sham, an al-Qaida-linked group previously known as the Nusra Front, which has intermingled with USA -backed fighters.
With the Syrian conflict drawing Russian, Iranian, and US forces, along with Islamic State terrorists and armed opposition groups, Lavrov said that “no one can give a 100 percent guarantee” that the deal will hold. If the cease-fire holds for seven days, the US and Russian Federation would then work together to target an al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as the Nusra Front, which in some cases has mingled with rebels that the USA supports.
“Getting the Assad regime to comply with the Russian part and the opposition to comply with the US part is going to be a real struggle”, said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
After the Geneva announcement, Pentagon secretary Peter Cook offered a guarded endorsement of the arrangement and cautioned, “We will be watching closely the implementation of this understanding in the days ahead”.
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Global desk – Russian Federation and the United States have agreed for a peace plan in conflict-ravaged west Asian country of Syria, according to media reports.
