REPORT: Syria’s al-Waer agreement enters second phase

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2016-09-26 | 05:59
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REPORT: Syria’s al-Waer agreement enters second phase
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4min
REPORT: Syria’s al-Waer agreement enters second phase
The United States accused Russia of "barbarism" in Syria on Sunday as warplanes supporting Syrian government forces pounded Aleppo and Moscow said ending the civil war was almost "impossible".

A diplomatic solution to the fighting looked unlikely as US and Russian diplomats disagreed at a UN Security Council meeting called to discuss the violence, which has escalated since a ceasefire collapsed last week.

Rebels, who are battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces for control of Aleppo, said any peace process would be futile unless the "scorched earth bombing" stopped immediately.

Capturing the rebel-held half of Syria's largest city, where more than 250,000 civilians are trapped, would be the biggest victory of the civil war for Assad's forces.

They have achieved their strongest position in years thanks to Russian and Iranian support and launched a fresh offensive for a decisive battlefield victory on Thursday. Residents and rebels say hundreds have been killed in the new strikes.

In the first major advance of the new offensive, Syrian forces seized control of the Handarat Palestinian refugee camp, north of Aleppo.

Rebels counter attacked and said on Sunday they had retaken the camp before the bombing started.

Planes continued to pound residential areas on Sunday, flattening buildings, rebels and residents said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said at least 45 people, among them 10 children, were killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday.

The army says it is targeting only militants.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war and 11 million driven from their homes.

Russia and the United States agreed on Sept. 9 a deal to put the peace process back on track. It included a nationwide truce and improved humanitarian aid access but it collapsed when an aid convoy was bombed killing some 20 people.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who hammered out the truce in months of intensive diplomacy, pleaded with Russia to halt air strikes.

UN Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura appealed to the Council meeting to come up with a way to enforce a ceasefire.
 

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem accused the US, Britain, and France of convening the Security Council meeting a day earlier in order to support "terrorists" inside Syria. But he said ongoing communications between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meant a truce agreement brokered two weeks ago is "not dead."

 

Syria's military declared the cease-fire ended one week ago.

 

The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the cease-fire in Syria is ineffective, but that Moscow is not losing hope for a political solution to the country's crisis.

 
Outside Aleppo, anti-Assad fighters have been driven mostly into rural areas. Nevertheless, they remain a potent fighting force, which they demonstrated with an advance of their own on Saturday.
 

A second group of rebel gunmen and their families began evacuating from an opposition neighborhood in central Syria this month.

 

Some 120 gunmen and their families are expected to leave the al-Waer neighborhood in the central city of Homs as part of an agreement to restore the government's authority over the neighborhood, Homs Governor Talal Barazi said.

 
 
REUTERS/AP

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