Syria’s army said Wednesday it will abide by a two-day ceasefire in second city Aleppo agreed between the United States and Russian Federation.
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The Russian defense ministry said its ceasefire monitors had agreed with their United States counterparts to oversee this truce until midnight on May 6.
Fierce fighting raged in the war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo and air strikes pounded rebels east of the capital Damascus on Wednesday as diplomats scrambled to salvage a collapsing truce. The Observatory said 279 civilians had been killed in Aleppo by bombardment since April 22 – 155 of them in opposition-held areas and 124 in government-held districts.
Kerry added that U.S. officials in Geneva were coordinating with their Russian colleagues on “enhanced monitoring efforts for this renewed cessation”.
Once a nationwide “cessation of hostilities” is again in place, the U.S. and United Nations hope the warring parties will return to peace talks.
Government airstrikes and shelling have terrorized much of the city, but an apparent rebel strike on a hospital in Aleppo has also horrified the local population.
Concurrently, the “regime of silence” was extended in Damascus’ Eastern Ghouta and in the north of the Latakia province.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late Tuesday he hoped to agree a freeze of fighting in Aleppo “in the near future, maybe even in the next few hours” after meeting de Mistura in Moscow.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that, overall, “we have seen an overall decrease in violence in these areas”.
Earlier this week Morning Edition spoke with New York Times correspondent Declan Walsh, who recently visited Aleppo.
Some of the heaviest clashes in Aleppo in months continued on Wednesday as rebel forces pressed an offensive against regime troops on the city’s western outskirts, a monitor said.
Syrian state TV on Tuesday, May 3, 2016 says dozens of people have been killed or wounded when rebels fired rockets into a government-held neighborhood of the northern city of Aleppo.
The conflict in Syria has killed at least 270,000 people, forced millions from their homes, sparked Europe’s biggest migrant crisis since World War II and enabled Islamic State to gain control of territory from which it plotted terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels.
Power called on the regime’s supporters, especially Russian Federation and Iran, to press it to meet its obligations to honor a negotiated truce or “cessation of hostilities”.
The Syrian military says Thursday will be the first day of the so-called “regime of calm”, and it will last just 48 hours.
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He said the Syrian government abided by the cessation of hostilities that went into effect in late February and accused armed groups allied with the Nusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida, of violating the agreement, particularly in Aleppo.
