Western envoys leave emergency meeting
does justify what is going on in front of our own eyes: the unraveling of the cessation of hostilities and the simultaneous unleashing of unprecedented military violence affecting innocent civilians as well,” he said.
He urged the United States and Russia “to go that extra mile to see if they can save their agreement of Sept. 9 and do so at the eleventh hour.”
He also urged the Security Council to press for a cessation of hostilities, weekly 48-hour pauses to deliver aid and medical evacuations for several urgent cases in eastern Aleppo.
De Mistura said Syrians and the international community are swiftly losing any remaining hope with Washington and Moscow “unless we salvage what was agreed on.”
“All we can expect from Aleppo if the Syrian government is intent on retaking it is ... a slow, grinding, street-by-street fight, over the course of months, if not years, whereby the ancient city will be almost completely destroyed,” he warned.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin blamed Syria’s rebels for sabotaging the cease-fire agreement by using the lull to shore up their forces, and he accused the Western coalition of failing to separate the moderate factions it backs from “terrorist” groups especially the al-Qaida-linked Fatah Sham Front.
“In Syria, hundreds of armed groups are being armed,” Churkin said. “The territory of the country is being bombed indiscriminately. Bringing a peace is almost an impossible task now.”
But he made clear that Moscow hasn’t given up on a cessation of hostilities.
“Of course, I would like this very much to be our aim as well as the renewal of negotiations,” he said.
Churkin stressed, however, that Russia first wants to see “a sincere desire” by the U.S. coalition to separate the moderate opposition from the Fatah Sham Front.
Power said the United States knows “that Russia has consistently said one thing, and done the opposite.”
But she said the United States also believes it must do “everything in our power to find a way to halt the violence.”
While intra-Syria negotiations remain the aim of the Western powers and Russia, a broad coalition of 33 Syrian rebel factions issued a statement Sunday saying: “Negotiations under the present conditions are no longer useful and are meaningless.”
The opposition groups said they won’t accept any Russian mediation, calling Moscow a “partner to the regime in the crimes against our people.”
They also called on the government and Russian forces to halt airstrikes and lift sieges on opposition areas where the United Nations estimates 600,000 Syrians are trapped.
On the sidelines of the meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged an end to the offensive, saying the bombs “are not busting bunkers, they are demolishing ordinary people looking for any last refuge of safety.”
“International law is clear: The systematic use of indiscriminate weapons in densely populated areas is a war crime,” he said.
AMMAN, Jordan — A gunman shot dead Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar on Sunday outside the court where he was to stand trial on charges of contempt of religion after sharing on social media a caricature seen as insulting Islam, witnesses and media said.
The gunman was arrested at the scene, state news agency Petra said. A security source said he was a 39-yearold Muslim preacher in a mosque in the capital.
Hattar, a Christian and an anti-Islamist activist, was arrested last month after sharing on social media a caricature depicting a bearded man in heaven smoking in bed with women and asking God to bring him wine and clear his dishes.
Lebanon’s powerful Shi’ite Hezbollah militant group mourned Hattar as a “brave and vocal voice” against the Takfiris, a derogatory term used to describe hard-line Sunni fundamentalists such as Islamic State.