Ceasefire in Syria agreed

Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry

World powers have agreed to a ‘cessation of hostilities’ in Syria, due to begin in a week’s time, after a crisis meeting was held in Munich.

Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry

US Secretary of State John Kerry made the announcement just after midnight on Friday morning and said that leaders had agreed to ‘accelerate, expand’ humanitarian aid in Syria during a pause in the fighting to begin in one week.

Both the al-Assad government and the Syrian Opposition agreed to the deal which will see a humanitarian task force created to deliver aid to cities such as Aleppo, where moderate rebels have been beseiged by the Syrian government, aided by Russian airstrikes.

The agreement does not include either ISIS or Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria Jabhat al-Nusra, who holds a large part of the country’s north west province of Idlib.

Mr Kerry was joined in a press conference by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN Syrian Peace Envoy Staffan de Mistura.

But Kerry reiterated that the war will not necessarily end in the near future and the agreement was merely to provide a ‘pause’ to allow humanitarian aid into Syria.

‘Sustained delivery will begin this week, first to the areas where it is most urgently needed… and then to all the people in need throughout the country, particularly in the besieged and hard to reach areas,’ Kerry said.

He also said peace talks between rebels and the Syrian government would resume in Geneva ‘as soon as possible’.

They were derailed earlier this month as the regime began bombarding the key rebel city of Aleppo with support from Russian bombers and Iranian fighters, triggering an exodus of over 50,000 refugees.

It is understood that a deal was not reached for an immediate end to the Russian bombings.

Lavrov said the Russian air campaign in support of Assad’s military would continue against terrorist groups.

Five years of conflict have killed more than a quarter-million people, created Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II and allowed the Islamic State to carve out its own territory across parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

Kerry added that there was a ‘need for a more permanent (solution) and something far more reflective of an end of conflict’.

Mr Kerry said: ‘The objective is to achieve a durable, long-term ceasefire. That will only become possible if the parties are willing to negotiate round the table. We’re doing everything in the power of diplomacy to try to bring an end to this conflict.’

He added that a long-term ceasefire in Syria depended on parties to its civil war engaging in ‘genuine negotiation’.

He said ‘the objective is to achieve a durable long-term ceasefire at some point in time’ but that depended on future negotiations.

Mr Kerry acknowledged that differences remained over the future of Syrian president Bashar Assad, but said: ‘You have to be at the table to deal with that.’

He said the aim was to end up in a ‘secular, whole state’.

‘We’re convinced that’s the only way Syria survives and can make peace,’ he said, adding that President al-Assad’s future ‘has to be resolved in the context of the negotiation’.

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that if the deal is to work, Russian bombing ‘will have to stop’ and that there can be no lasting ceasefire ‘if opposition continues to be targeted’.

Mr Hammond said: ‘The International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting in Munich committed members to achieving a cessation of hostilities within a week, to delivering humanitarian assistance to named besieged communities by this weekend and to facilitating rapid progress in negotiations aimed at political transition.

‘If implemented fully and properly by every ISSG member, this will be an important step towards relieving the killing and suffering in Syria. But it will only succeed if there is a major change of behaviour by the Syrian regime and its supporters.

‘Russia, in particular, claims to be attacking terrorist groups and yet consistently bombs non-extremist groups including civilians. If this agreement is to work, this bombing will have to stop: no cessation of hostilities will last if moderate opposition groups continue to be targeted.’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the ‘humanitarian situation is worsening’ and that ‘collective efforts are needed to stop it’.

Russia had proposed the March 1 ceasefire, but the U.S. and others saw that as a ploy to give Moscow and the Syrian army three more weeks to try to crush Western- and Arab-backed rebels. The U.S. countered with demands for an immediate stop to the fighting. Both countries appeared to have made concessions on that front.

Despite the concession on potential timing of the truce and the agreement to set up the task force, the U.S., Russia and others remain far apart on which groups should be eligible for it. T

The new task force, which will include military officials, will take up a job that was supposed to have been settled months ago. At the moment, only two groups – the Islamic State group and the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front – are ineligible for the truce because they are identified as terrorist organizations by the United Nations.

Russia, Syria and Iran argue that other groups, notably some supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and some other Arab states, should not be eligible for the ceasefire, and there was no sign Friday that those differences had been resolved.

As Kerry met with the Syria group in Munich, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter was in Brussels to rally fresh support for the fight against the Islamic State group in largely the same territory.

Carter said defense ministers from more than two dozen countries gave a ‘broad endorsement’ of a refined U.S. plan for defeating the Islamic State. After a meeting at NATO headquarters, Carter told reporters that nearly all participants either promised new military commitments or said their governments would consider new contributions. He predicted ‘tangible gains’ in Iraq and Syria by March.

‘We will all look back after victory and remember who participated in the fight,’ he said, appealing to coalition partners to expand and deepen their military contributions.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance agreed Thursday to deploy NATO airborne command and control aircraft in order to free up similar U.S. aircraft for the air campaign in Syria and Iraq.

Daily Mail

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NIZEYIMAMA JEAN