Envoys: No truce for now in Syria
MUNICH — Diplomats trying to secure a ceasefire for the civil war in Syria fell short in organizing an immediate truce but agreed to try to work out details and implement a temporary “cessation of hostilities” in the coming week.
Foreign ministers from the International Syria Support Group also sealed an agreement early this morning to “accelerate and expand” deliveries of humanitarian assistance to seven besieged Syrian communities. Those deliveries are to begin immediately after a working group meets on the matter later today in Geneva.
Speaking for the group, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the result was “unanimous.”
“Everybody today agreed on the urgency of humanitarian access,” he said, but he cautioned that the agreement still is mere “words on paper” and that more work would need to be done to turn it into a full-fledged cease-fire.
“The real test is whether or not all the parties honor those commitments and implement them,” he said. “What we need to see in the next few days are actions on the ground.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called cessation of hostilities the “first step” toward a full cease-fire.
Kerry and Lavrov, who had been pressing for a cease-fire to begin March 1, said the U.S. and Russia would co-lead both the working group on humanitarian aid and the group that will try to deal with the “modalities” of the temporary truce.
The plan, drafted by United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura in consultation with Kerry and the Syrian opposition, as-
sumes that Syria President Bashar Assad’s government, which is not represented in Munich, would be pressed by Russia to agree. Parties to the talks said that the first relief airdrops could occur as early as this weekend.
Under the draft plan, Russia would take responsibility for humanitarian airdrops, avoiding potential problems of U.S. or allied military aircraft flying over combat zones in sovereign Syrian territory.
Two committees would be formed of the 17 countries that are part of the International Syrian Support Group. The group, including Russia and Iran in addition to U.S. allies in Europe and the region surrounding Syria, will develop a formula for peace talks between the Syrian government and the opposition, with a U.N. resolution mandating its terms for a cease-fire, formation of a transition government and eventual negotiations.
The Syrian government and the opposition would both have to agree to the details.
One of the new committees would monitor humanitarian access and deliveries, troubleshooting and adjudicating claims of interference. The second committee would monitor the cease-fire. Details of what some diplomats called a less formal “cessation of hostilities” have still not been firmed up.
While humanitarian access is critical to relieving the suffering of millions of Syrians the in the short term, a durable and lasting cease-fire will be required if stalled negotiations between Assad’s government and the opposition are to resume on or before the U.N.-set target date of Feb. 25. The talks broke down earlier this month before they really started, largely because of gains by Assad’s military with the heavy backing of Russian airstrikes.
Asked this morning to comment on the Munich talks, Salem Meslet, the spokesman for the Syrian opposition coalition known as the Higher Negotiating Committee, said, “We must see action on the ground in Syria.”
De Mistura said he expected an early resumption of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition. Meslet had said the opposition would return to talks with the government in Geneva if the new plan is implemented. But, he said, “we have to see something — food go to children who are starving to death. Then we’ll go sit at the same table” with the government.
Russia had proposed the March 1 cease-fire, but the U.S. and others say that will give Moscow and the Syrian army three more weeks to try to crush Western- and Arab-backed rebels. The U.S. called for an immediate stop to the fighting. Both countries appeared to have made concessions on that front.
The effort has been considered a last chance to stop the carnage in Syria that has left hundreds of thousands dead and sent millions fleeing from the country. What was already a desperate situation in Syria has worsened over the past few weeks, as 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.
Lavrov said the Russian air campaign would continue against terrorist groups and denied persistent reports that the Russian strikes have hit civilian areas.
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. 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 extremist 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 cease-fire, and there was no sign this morning that those differences had been resolved.
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 250,000 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.
As Kerry met with the Syria group in Munich, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton 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.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Jamey Keaten, Bassem Mroue, Lolita C. Baldor, Bradley Klapper, Robert Burns and Geir Moulson of The Associated Press and by Karen DeYoung Michael Birnbaum, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Griff Witte and Brian Murphy of The Washington Post.