UN presses Russia to save Syria truce

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Reuters

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About two-thirds of the recent deaths in Aleppo have been in the rebel-held eastern side of city

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura is to meet Russia’s foreign minister to discuss efforts to salvage the crumbling cessation of hostilities in Syria.

Mr de Mistura wants Russia and the US, which back opposing sides in the war, to work together to restore the partial truce they negotiated in February.

Washington has criticised Moscow for failing to rein in Syrian government forces around the city of Aleppo.

But Moscow says air strikes there have only been targeting “terrorists”.

More than 250 people have died in Aleppo in the past 10 days, most of them civilians, activists say.

About two-thirds of those deaths have been in the rebel-held eastern side of city, including 50 in an air strike on a hospital that the US says was deliberate.

On Tuesday, rebel rocket fire on government-controlled areas of Aleppo left at least four civilians dead, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Speaking in Geneva on the eve of his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Mr de Mistura described the nine-week-old cessation of hostilities in Syria as a “miracle”, but warned it was “becoming very fragile”.

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EPA

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John Kerry and Staffan de Mistura discussed ways to rescue the truce in Geneva on Monday

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AFP

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The Red Cross has warned Aleppo is being pushed further to the brink of humanitarian disaster

He said the situation in Aleppo needed to be addressed urgently.

“There is no excuse for not finding, again, and reinvigorating and reinstalling and re-implementing what has been the only strong message the Syrian people have heard from all of us – that it is possible to have [peace] talks when finally the cessation of hostilities is reducing the violence,” he added.

The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says the UN envoy knows that Russia has a vital role to play because of its close ties to Damascus and the influence it has on President Bashar al-Assad.

Mr de Mistura was speaking after holding talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who warned that the Syrian conflict was “in many ways out of control”.

Mr Kerry acknowledged that rebel forces were also fighting on the ground in Aleppo, but he made clear who he thought was chiefly to blame.

“You cannot have legitimate political talks about peace when the parties at the table have both signed up to an agreement which calls for a full cessation of hostilities countrywide as well as a full delivery of humanitarian materials countrywide, and yet one party is blatantly violating that agreement,” he told reporters.

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AFP

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A Red Cross aid convoy was able to reach the besieged rebel-held town of Talbiseh on Monday

Mr Kerry said Washington would press rebels operating in Aleppo to distance themselves from the jihadist group al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate which is excluded from the cessation of hostilities.

Russia and the Syrian government have said they are targeting on al-Nusra militants, whom they consider terrorists. However, the US and the opposition have accused the government of indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

Mr Kerry later spoke by telephone to Mr Lavrov. The pair “agreed on new measures to be taken”, the Russian foreign ministry said, without providing details.

A Russian military official separately said talks were under way on extending to Aleppo the “regime of calm” that was declared by the Syrian military over the weekend around the capital, Damascus, and the coastal province of Latakia.

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