UN approves Aleppo monitors, evacuations from city proceed
BEIRUT: The leaders of Russia and Iran, military allies of Syria’s president, talked yesterday about joining forces to reach a quick political settlement in Syria, as the country’s largest city, Aleppo, was poised to return to full government control.
Syrian state TV said it expected the evacuation of thousands of civilians and fighters from the last opposition footholds in Aleppo to be completed today.
As more people left the city, the UN Security council approved a compromise French-Russian resolution urging the immediate deployment of UN monitors to watch over the evacuation and “the well-being of civilians” remaining in the city.
UN officials said more than 100 UN humanitarian staff already on the ground in Aleppo, most of them Syrian nationals, could be used in that role.
The departure of the last rebels from Aleppo would close another chapter in Syria’s civil war and would give President Bashar al-Assad a significant victory.
Almost six years after the outbreak of an armed rebellion against Assad, the Syrian leader will be in charge again of the country’s five largest cities and the Mediterranean coast.
The presidents of Russia and Iran spoke by phone yesterday to discuss the next moves. The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani “underlined the need for joint efforts to launch a real political process aimed at a quick settlement in Syria”.
The leaders noted that a quick launch of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, would be an important step toward that goal, a Kremlin statement said.
The conversation came a day before a scheduled meeting of foreign and defence ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran in Moscow. Russia and Iran have backed Assad, while Turkey has supported the opposition.
The UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, welcomed the Moscow meeting and any effort that resulted in a cessation of hostilities.
He announced that the UN hoped to arrange negotiations between the government and opposition in Geneva on February 8.
In the Turkish capital of Ankara, meanwhile, the Russian ambassador was shot to death by a man shouting, “Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria!”
The gunman fired at least eight shots, killing Andrey Karlov, 62, at an embassy-sponsored exhibition, and was then slain by police.
Resolution
Discussing the Security Council resolution calling for monitors in Aleppo, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said there would also be observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Crescent.
The resolution also demands that all parties allow immediate access for the UN and its partners to deliver humanitarian aid and medical care.
Syria’s UN ambassador, Bashar al-Ja’afari, claimed that one of the “main purposes” government opponents pushed for the resolution was to get people into eastern Aleppo to rescue foreign intelligence officers still in the former rebel-held area.
He named 12 alleged officers still trying to get out of Aleppo – six from Saudi Arabia and one each from Turkey, the US, Israel, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco.
He said: “We are going to catch them… and show them to you.”
The rebels captured eastern Aleppo in July 2012.
The evacuation of Aleppo began last week after Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire as government forces closed in on the rebels’ last redoubt.
The evacuation of more than 2 000 sick and wounded from the rebel-besieged Shia villages of Foua and Kfarya was tacked on to the deal at the last minute. The opposition’s Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV said 10 buses left those villages with civilians yesterday.
There are also plans to evacuate people from Madaya and Zabadani, rebel-held villages near the Lebanese border.
The Observatory and Mayadeen said 15 buses entered the villages yesterday.
One of those who left Aleppo yesterday was Mohammed Abu Jaafar, who described a miserable 5km trip that took more than two hours in an overcrowded bus.
He said they passed three checkpoints, one manned by Russian troops, another by plainclothes Syrian intelligence agents and the third by Syrian troops.
Inside the bus, men, women and children were hungry and cold as they waited for hours in freezing temperatures, he said.
“Children were screaming, and some people fainted,” he said, adding that there was no baby formula or diapers.
The Observatory and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that since midnight on Sunday, about 4 500 people had been evacuated from eastern Aleppo.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said a total of 131 wounded people – including 46 children – were brought to Turkey for treatment since the evacuations began last week. – ANA-AP