Hey, yeah. Putin is giving top support to the ass ad, been watching Aleppo a bit .. this from yours ..
2h ago 20:06
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the press conference in Munich that his country’s air force would continue its airstrikes against Isis and al-Nusra targets in Syria – as the agreement permits.
Russia had earlier proposed a 1 March ceasefire date, but the US said it wanted an immediate halt to fighting.
Ahead of Thursday night’s announcement, the US had accused Russia of exacerbating the conflict with military strikes in support of Assad.
State department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters:
Hammond says it's an important step. Would be gggreat if it turned out to be a significant one .. this one about one hour ago ..
U.S., Russia and other powers agree on ‘cessation of hostilities’ in Syria
VIDEO: Kerry says world powers to expand Syria aid 'immediately'
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry says that major powers have agreed to accelerate and expand delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria “beginning immediately." (Reuters)
By Karen DeYoung February 11 at 7:04 PM
MUNICH — The United States, Russia and other powers agreed to a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria’s civil war, to take place within the next week, and immediate humanitarian access into besieged areas, Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced here early Friday morning.
“It was unanimous,” Kerry said of a communique .. .. http://www.un.org/sg/offthecuff/index.asp?nid=4369 .. issued after hours of meetings among participants in a group of nations that have supported and armed one side or the other in the four-year war. “Everybody today agreed,” he said. But the proof of commitment will come only with implementation. “What we have here are words on paper,” Kerry said. “What we need to see in the next few days are actions on the ground.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the projected date for ending at least some of his country’s airstrikes in Syria is a week from Friday, but he emphasized that “terrorist” groups would continue to be targeted, including the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda’s in Syria that is involved in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad. The group in some instances fights alongside rebel forces supported by the United States and its allies.
The determination of eligible targets and geographic areas is to be left up to a task force of nations, headed by Russia and the United States, that will adjudicate differences of opinion. It is expected but by no means guaranteed that signatories to the agreement will be able to persuade their proxies and allies on the ground, including Assad and the hundreds of opposition groups fighting against him, to honor the terms.
Kerry and Lavrov emphasized that the agreement is not perfect and will require the goodwill and determination of all involved.
Lavrov also described a “qualitative” change in U.S. military policy to cooperate with Russia in continuing the fight against the Islamic State. Until now, the Obama administration has declined to deal with Russia except to “deconflict” their airstrikes to prevent their aircraft from running into each other in Syria’s skies.
“The key thing is to build direct contacts, not only on procedures to avoid incidents, but also cooperation between our militaries,” Lavrov said.
Kerry said there had been no change in policy, but he said humanitarian and other agreed programs would require the ability “to talk about deployment of forces, the presence of people, who can go where, how they get there, and avoid conflict in ways that are effective” to implement the agreement.
Lavrov described the cessation of hostilities as the “first step” toward a cease-fire, a more formal legal construct that can involve the turning in of arms and demobilization of forces. Instead, he described the immediate goal as more akin to a truce.
The aim is that humanitarian relief begin as early as this weekend, with Russian airdrops to at least seven areas of Syria that cannot be easily reached by road. A second task force of countries, drawn from among the 17 that participated in the talks, will determine the “modalities” of allowing ground convoys of food and medicines to pass through government and opposition lines to reach dozens of other besieged communities.
Kerry and Lavrov acknowledged that they and other members of the group continue to disagree about many issues in Syria, including Assad’s future.
The Munich effort was seen as a last chance to stop carnage in Syria that has left hundreds of thousands dead and sent millions fleeing from the country. What was already a desperate situation in the country has greatly worsened over the past few weeks, as massive Russian bombardment in and around the city of Aleppo has scattered opposition fighters and driven tens of thousands of civilians toward the barricaded Turkish border.
Participants said they had noted a new U.S. willingness to stand up to the Russians, who agreed in December to a U.N. resolution calling for a cease-fire in conjunction with peace talks.
The Obama administration has been under pressure from its allies to stop the flow into Europe of what are now about 1 million refugees. Partners in the Middle East have also openly despaired of what they see as declining U.S. leadership in the region.
Beyond its recent appearance of allowing Russia to act with impunity, the administration has long resisted calls from regional partners to increase its relatively low level of military aid and training to opposition forces, even as President Obama insisted that Assad would have to step down. A failure of the Munich effort would have presented the administration with a decision on whether to reverse course and expand its assistance to the opposition. Click here for more information!
Some diplomats here noted that the Russians may be more amenable now to an early cease-fire, since the airstrikes and Iranian-aided ground operations have achieved their goal of regaining control for Assad over much of the country’s western population centers. This month’s Russian bombing has driven opposition forces out of areas of Aleppo and the surrounding province they had occupied almost since the civil war began in earnest four years ago.
“Everybody’s calculations have shifted” because of events of the past few weeks, one diplomat said. The diplomats spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door talks.
Opposition leaders said as the talks progressed Thursday that they were optimistic after meeting with Kerry and others. “We’ll wait two days and see if all the promises they made are kept,” Salem al-Meslet, the spokesman for a negotiating team appointed by the Syrian opposition to open U.N.-sponsored talks with the government, said before the agreement was announced. “Hopefully, we’ll see something by Monday.”
U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said he anticipated an early resumption of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition. Meslet said the opposition would return to talks if the new plan is implemented. But, he said, “we have to see something — food [must] go to children who are starving to death. Then we’ll go sit at the same table” with the government.
“I can’t stop [Vladimir] Putin,” he said of the Russian president. “Can you say no to Putin?” he said, referring to the United States and its allies.
The initial session of the negotiations was suspended last week after the opposition protested the lack of humanitarian access to besieged areas as well as Russia’s stepped-up airstrikes near Aleppo.
The Munich meeting, the fourth the group has held, was initially intended to bless and monitor talks that were supposed to start early this month. Instead, it turned into an emergency session to put the process back on track. Click here for more information!
Although isolated, small-scale fighting is likely to continue, the deal would ideally stop the use of heavy weapons, including tanks and antitank missiles. The United States and its partners would continue their current level of equipping and training the opposition so as not to leave the rebels at a disadvantage if the cease-fire collapses. Russia presumably would continue its support for the Syrian government.
Despite the diplomatic talks here, combat both real and verbal continued Thursday. Russia’s Defense Ministry was defiant about Moscow’s intervention in Syria, saying it would not yield to Western entreaties to stop an effort that has given Assad powerful momentum on the battlefield.
Western efforts at “political transitions” led to bloodshed and refugees, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters in Moscow. He gave no indication that Russia plans to stop its combat air missions anytime soon.
Konashenkov denied that Russia was bombing civilians, saying that “no matter how long one baits terrorists, they will not become opposition members.”
Responding to a charge Wednesday from Col. Steve Warren, the Baghdad-based spokesman for coalition operations in Iraq and Syria, that Russian planes had bombed two hospitals in Aleppo, Konashenkov said two U.S. planes were in fact responsible.
“There were no coalition airstrikes in or near Aleppo on Wednesday, Feb. 10,” Warren countered on Thursday. “Any claim that the coalition had aircraft in the area is a fabrication.”
Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Griff Witte in Brussels and Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.
.. any progress to ameliorate the human suffering in Syria is good to see .. yay, git it all on TA .. ocean floors to space outdoors, it's all here .. :)
A spokesman for Syria’s leading opposition group says his organization is likely to attend U.N.-brokered peace talks on Monday after walking away from earlier negotiations, building momentum behind the most promising, albeit distant, diplomatic push in years to end the civil war.
“Talks will start on Monday in Geneva,” High Negotiations Committee spokesman Salim al-Muslat told Foreign Policy in an interview Wednesday. “It will be indirect talks with two separate rooms. We have no problem with that.”
Muslat said he could not officially confirm the HNC’s attendance until it completes an internal assessment on the ceasefire that took effect on Feb. 27. But he expressed optimism that discussions were moving in the right direction.
“We are optimistic, but we’re still waiting for a decision from all the members of HNC. We’re not against attending negotiations,” he added.
The long-stalled resumption of peace talks has been expected since the U.S.-Russia-brokered ceasefire that has sharply reduced the country’s violence. Though limited in its scope — it does not preclude strikes against the Islamic State or the al Qaeda-affiliated al Nusra Front — the truce has largely held despite sporadic violence in different parts of the country, including most recently in Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group, said 80 civilians died in ceasefire zones since the agreement took effect.
In a Wednesday news conference, the U.N.’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, cautiously welcomed the “sustained reduction of violence.”
“Incidents are taking place, no question … I’m expecting even worse incidents to take place, probably caused by spoilers,” he said.
Still, de Mistura said he expects “substantive, deeper” talks between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and opposition leaders to start Monday, continuing 10 days before a seven-day break. The agenda includes the formation of a transitional government, a new constitution, and holding fresh elections.
“At the end of the day, a ceasefire and cessation of hostilities are not the solution,” he said. The solution is a political transition.”
Rebel leaders have raised doubts .. http://www.voanews.com/content/key-players-are-no-shows-as-talks-re-open/3226378.html .. over the last 24 hours about attending. On Wednesday, the HNC’s general coordinator, Riad Hijab, accused pro-Assad forces of carrying out an airstrike on an Idlib market that “massacred” tens of people and jeopardized the political process. The Assad’s regime, meanwhile, has said it may not join the talks on the first day, suggesting that the start date could slide beyond the 14th.
Muslat said the ceasefire was unquestionably a “good thing” despite his view that “many violations” were caused by Assad’s regime and Moscow. He said 21 aid trucks delivered supplies Tuesday to distressed Syrians in eastern Ghouta, including five carrying medical supplies, and described it as “a very positive step.”
Still, he accused the regime of preventing humanitarian access to the Damascus suburb of Darayya. “People need food and medication,” Muslat said. “The regime is insisting not to let anything through.”
Jan Egeland, a Norwegian aid official who is coordinating the U.N. relief effort, confirmed that the Syrian government continues to besiege six of seven areas where aid has been completely cut off. The Islamic State is laying siege to the seventh, Deir Ez Zour. In recent weeks, the U.N. has reached desperate civilians in 10 other besieged areas, including towns that had previously been isolated by opposition fighters.
Despite the constraints, De Mistura said the U.N. has made “quite [an] achievement” on the humanitarian front. He said an estimated 536 trucks have carried aid to besieged areas, providing assistance to at least 238,485 people. That compares, he said, to “last year, zero.”
Last month, the first round of U.N.-brokered political talks were suspended before they got off the ground as Assad’s forces, supported by Russian air strikes, carried out a major offensive to seize rebel-held areas in the northern city of Aleppo. The collapse of the talks was a significant setback for Secretary of State John Kerry, who has spent countless hours with various sides of the conflict, and brokered the ceasefire with the help of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
During congressional testimony Wednesday, Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, acknowledged the maddening complexity of the Syria crisis, which he suggested would last for decades.
“We are dealing with a civil war where Syria, backed by powerful expansionist and maligned actors in the form of Iran and Russia, barrel bombs its own citizens, creating a humanitarian disaster and fueling large-scale migration across the region and into Europe,” Votel told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The area is rife with long-standing sectarian issues that breed mistrust and disenfranchisement.”
He called such problems “generational issues.”
FP’s UN correspondent Colum Lynch contributed to this report.
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