Russia denies safe exit agreed for Aleppo rebels
SYRIA: The United States and Russia yesterday tabled a proposal to rebels in Aleppo that would offer safe passage from the city for fighters, their families and other civilians, three opposition officials with Aleppo rebel groups said.
However, Russia denied any deal had been reached, saying reports of the proposal do not ‘‘necessarily correspond with reality’’.
The rebel groups in Aleppo have yet to respond to the proposal, the opposition officials said.
The proposal promised rebel fighters a ‘‘secure’’ and ‘‘honourable’’ withdrawal from the city, they said.
If rebels accept the proposal, it would restore Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s full control over rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo, his biggest victory yet in the civil war that has shattered his country.
The Russian-backed Syrian military and its allies have captured swathes of rebel-held eastern Aleppo in a ferocious military campaign, squeezing rebel fighters and tens of thousands of civilians into an ever shrinking enclave.
Russia and the US have been meeting in Geneva to seek a solution to the fighting and the humanitarian crisis it has caused.
Islamic State captured the ancient city of Palmyra yesterday.
In the government’s first official admission that Palmyra had fallen once again to the militants, state media quoted the governor of the province of Homs, where the city is located, as saying the army had pulled out of the city.
The collapse of the city’s defences despite the heavy bombing and reinforcements sent by the Syrian army has exposed the limitations of the Russian backing that has turned the tide of the conflict in al-Assad’s favour.
‘‘The army is using all means to prevent the terrorists from staying in Palmyra,’’ Homs Governor Talal Barazi said hours after Isis and a Britain-based monitoring group both said the militants had full control of the city. – Reuters