However, the US officials said details of the agreement were shared on Monday.
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“We are prepared to extend the cessation of hostilities, while working to strengthen it and expand deliveries of assistance”, Mr Kirby said in a statement released after the Syrian declaration.
Earlier on Monday, Russia criticized the United States for not doing enough to rein in militants in Syria to protect the truce deal, saying continued violations of the ceasefire by militants made it “senseless” for Damascus to stick to the agreement.
Kerry spoke after Syrian state television cited the country’s military as saying the cease-fire had ended and Russian Federation called the deal “meaningless” because the US had been unable to influence moderate opposition groups in the country.
In a written statement later Monday, the State Department said it has seen the Syrian military’s comment and that it expects Russian Federation to ensure Assad’s compliance with the ceasefire deal. Tuesday’s report came after an aid convoy was hit in the northern province of Aleppo.
A member of the Syrian Civil Defense – a group of volunteer first responders also known as the White Helmets – has criticized the United Nations humanitarian aid agency for suspending all convoys in Syria.
“It would be good if they didn’t talk first to the press but if they talked to the people who are actually negotiating this”, said the top U.S. diplomat. He added that “it’s time to end the grandstanding and time to do the real work”.
While acknowledging numerous violations, Mr Kirby said the truce, which took effect last Monday, had been responsible for “a measure of reduced violence”.
The brother of an aid worker who was killed when an aid convoy was attacked in Syria said the Red Crescent staffer was overseeing the unloading of trucks when a bomb hit the warehouse, killing him inside his vehicle.
Kirby noted that the cease-fire arrangement was agreed to by the United States and Russian Federation, which is responsible for the compliance of the Assad government.
The Syrian military said its seven-day “regime of calm” had expired and did not say if it would be renewed. 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.
But from the start, the truce has been beset by difficulties and mutual accusations of violations. A planned delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo – one of the first steps in the deal – has been repeatedly postponed.
“We have not had seven days of calm and of delivery of humanitarian goods”, Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. It said four civilians were killed in government-held areas.
Despite the spike in tension, food aid did reach the Damascus suburb of Moadamiyat al-Sham after a government deal granting amnesty to opposition fighters in the besieged town. “I believe that the truce is clinically dead”.
Zakaria Malahifji, speaking to Reuters from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, also indicated rebel groups were preparing for combat: “I imagine in the near future there will be action by the factions”.
He said “the main issue” was that non-jihadist rebels had not been separated from Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate on the ground. It said the armed groups also took advantage of the truce to mobilize and arm themselves while attacking government-held areas. Syrian President Bashar al Assad pointed to the strike as an act of “flagrant aggression”.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
The cease-fire applied to all armed groups in Syria, with the exception of the Daesh terrorist group and the Nusra Front, which recently changed its name to the Fateh al-Sham Front.
Kerry also said it was important to set up the Joint Implementation Center in order to prevent the “terrible thing that happened yesterday, that we all acknowledge and regret but it happens when you have conflict”.
Lt. -Gen. Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian Military General Staff, speaks to the media at a Russian Defense Ministry building in Moscow, Russia today.
The air strike on a Syrian army position by the US-led coalition on Saturday triggered a fierce war of words between Washington and Moscow, with Russian Federation saying it put the agreement under threat.
Since September 12, 27 civilians, including nine children, have been killed in areas where the truce had been set to take hold, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
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He denounced the Syrian military declaration, but also suggested that Russian Federation was partly to blame.
