Share

US Russia extends Syria truce for 48 hours

Russian Federation wants the U.N. Security Council to endorse the Syrian cease-fire agreement that it brokered together with the United States.

Advertisement

Earlier, activists said the ceasefire was still holding despite some violations.

But disagreements between warring sides and concerns about safety are delaying emergency deliveries, the United Nations says.

“We have to make sure that all of these groups along the route and inside east Aleppo are really fully onboard here”, said Mr Swanson, the United Nations spokesman.

There’s plenty of room for skepticism about this plan, given the history of failed attempts to stop the violence in Syria’s five-year-long war, as Alice has reported. Several previous negotiated cease-fires have unraveled and efforts to hold the peace talks have stalled.

The United Nations faces “a problem” in shipping humanitarian aid into Syria, the U.N. envoy for Syria said Thursday, pinning the blame squarely on a lack of authorizations from Bashar Assad’s government that has even disappointed the Syrian president’s key backer: Russian Federation.

If the truce holds for seven days, Russian and U.S. air forces will begin coordinated counterterrorism airstrikes.

He says that under the deal, opposition units were supposed to move away in lockstep but have failed to do so.

If the deal does hold, it could open the door to new peace talks to resolve the conflict, with Russian Federation saying De Mistura could invite government and opposition representatives to new talks “at the very beginning of October”.

Despite the transgressions, Poznikhir said he supported the extension of the ceasefire for a further 48 hours.

CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer arrived in Aleppo Wednesday, and reported Thursday morning that the sound of sporadic artillery could still be heard, as it has continually since the cease-fire took effect Monday evening.

More importantly, it should become clearer whether Russian Federation can be counted on to work with the U.S.to restart peace talks aimed at ending the five-and-a-half-year civil war that has devastated the country, killed more than 400,000 people and driven millions more from their homes.

Syrian opposition activists have said an airstrike on the eastern town of Mayadeen, held by the Islamic State group, has killed at least four people and wounded dozens.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said it had recorded no deaths in the country since the ceasefire took effect.

Mayadeen is in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, near the Iraqi border.

Russian Federation and the USA unveiled the latest effort to secure a cease-fire in Syria after talks in Geneva on Friday.

Initially, the deal allows the Syrian air force to continue strikes in areas where ISIS and Fateh al-Sham, previously known as Al-Nusra Front, are present.

“In his comments, Mr.de Mistura also highlighted a timeline, saying that if the 48-hour benchmark worked out ” including agreed-upon humanitarian access, with no bombs and more trucks ” ” followed by the creation of a joint command centre between Russian Federation and the USA to plan air operations in the country, a meeting on Syria may take place in NY during the General Assembly, and then a Security Council session on 21 September.

The U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura hailed a “significant drop in violence” over the first 24 hours of the cease-fire, but said no U.N. aid trucks have yet moved across the Turkish border into Syria. If the weeklong cessation holds and aid is distributed to besieged areas, the two powers intend to coordinate strikes against the Islamic State and a rebel group that has had ties to al-Qaida.

Advertisement

But rebel commanders told VOA they won’t do so until Syrian army and foreign Shi’ite militiamen drawn from Iran and other Mideast countries start pulling back too.

A rebel fighter on the streets of Aleppo in April