Moscow steps in to save Syria truce

‘OUT OF CONTROL’: 250 KILLED IN ALEPPO IN A WEEK

US’s Kerry, Russia’s foreign minister agree on new measures.

Efforts to salvage Syria’s ceasefi re were to shift to Moscow yesterday as the country’s second city of Aleppo reeled from a week of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians.

A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry launched a desperate push in Geneva to breathe life into the stuttering truce, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to meet the United Nations (UN) envoy Staffan de Mistura in the Russian capital.

The two-month-old ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia is under severe threat and Kerry said on Monday that Washington and Moscow had made progress in trying to contain the bloodshed. Kerry gave some of his most downbeat comments yet after meeting de Mistura in Geneva, saying the conflict was “in many ways out of control and deeply disturbing”.

The US and Russia have agreed to bolster the number of Geneva-based ceasefire monitors, Kerry said, adding they would track violations “24 hours a day, seven days a week”.

In and around Aleppo, a week of fighting has killed more than 250 people.

Kerry accused President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of deliberately targeting three clinics and a major hospital last week.

A senior US diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US, Russia and the UN have moved forward on a new ceasefire mechanism for Aleppo, but a deal was not complete.

Kerry stressed the goal was to reinforce a broad truce capable of withstanding further tests. He and Lavrov “agreed on new measures to be taken by Moscow and Washington”, a Russian foreign ministry statement said, without providing details.

While agreeing in theory to support a ceasefire, Russia has done little to rein in Assad’s forces around Aleppo, which were in action again on Monday.

Several neighbourhoods were hit, according to AFP’s correspondent there. Kerry said Washington would press moderate rebels to separate themselves from the Al-Nusra Front’s jihadists in Aleppo.

Russia and Assad’s regime have used the presence of Al-Nusra, which was not party to a February 27 ceasefire deal, as an excuse to press their offensive. –