He said the United Nations urges all parties “to abide by this immediately and comprehensively”, noting “implementation has proven challenging even as it has led to an overall decrease in violence”.
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The details of the ceasefire agreement and Russia’s level of support for it remain unclear.
It is critical that Russian Federation redoubles efforts to press Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to comply with the new arrangement while Washington does its part with Syrian opposition forces, the department said in a statement.
Last week, Russian Federation and the U.S. agreed on a temporary “freeze” in fighting in Eastern Ghouta and in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia.
Kerry responded to questions about Assad’s departure after announcing a new plan to end the latest wave of violence in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, where more than 250 civilians have been killed in less than a week by government airstrikes and rebel shelling.
Pro-opposition activists confirmed that report, adding that government forces regained control of a former shopping centre that had become a new front line with rebel fighters in the western part of the city.
His family has ruled Syria for four decades.”If Assad’s strategy is to somehow think he’s going to just carve out Aleppo and carve out a section of the country, I got news for you and for him: This war doesn’t end”, Kerry said.”As long as Assad is there, the opposition is not going to stop fighting”, he said.Kerry said he has told his counterparts in Moscow and Tehran that calm won’t prevail in Syria if they’re not prepared to move quickly toward a new Syrian government.”Assad can not reunite the country – it’s that simple”, Kerry said.”Having gassed his people, barrel bombed his people, dropped bombs on hospitals, driven 12 million people out of their homes, tortured people, starved people, what kind of legitimacy should somebody who’s committed these kinds of atrocities suddenly claim to run the country?”
Earlier this week Morning Edition spoke with New York Times correspondent Declan Walsh, who recently visited Aleppo. “Nobody is saying that there isn’t”.
The carnage in Aleppo and in the wider Syria must stop.
Civil defense members work at a site hit by an airstrike in the rebel held area of Aleppo on Tuesday.
The truce came after the city has witnessed more than ten days of violence which killed over 120 people and injured hundreds of others.
According to the Syrian military, a 48-hour “regime of silence” is set for Aleppo starting Thursday.
Jeffrey Feltman, the under-secretary of political affairs, told the council that the cessation of hostilities needed to be put back on track.
Wednesday’s announcement does little to settle the underlying conflict in Syria, where territory has been carved up between Assad, rebel groups and Islamic extremists such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The meeting, which is attended by Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby, was held upon a request by Qatar to discuss the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo. He said an estimated 300,000 remain in Aleppo and “live in constant fear over the next attack from the air, including from barrel bombs”. “There can be no explanation or excuse, no reason or rationale, for waging war on civilians”.
Ayrault said it is “a awful drama.in which the regime in Damascus bears the entire responsibility for what is happening – the threatening of the cease-fire”.
“While all sides have contributed to the violence the military escalation was attributable largely to the actions of a singular party: the Assad regime”, Power told the council. He said Russian and USA efforts “couldn’t be more important but we don’t need declarations, we need.an end to fighting”.
Almost two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he was pulling out “the main part” of his country’s forces from Syrian territory, strike aircraft, supported by fighter jets, keep taking off and landing with regularity.
The cessation of hostilities, as diplomats call it, does not apply to ISIL or Jabhat Al Nusra. “This has not occurred so far”.
Russian Federation and the United States were joint sponsors of a previous February 27 ceasefire agreement that had begun to fall apart, especially around Aleppo. Russia, he said, has been seeking since October “to establish this kind of cooperation, and unfortunately it has taken more than six months to achieve”.
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Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault and the U.N.’s Staffan de Mistura to a meeting Wednesday at a government guest house in Berlin.
