Syria says truce still viable after week of airstrikes
U.S., Britain, Russia and Syrian regime all point fingers after bombings
BEIRUT — Syria’s foreign minister said Monday that an internationally brokered cease-fire is still viable, as rescue workers in Aleppo sifted through the rubble from the heaviest airstrikes on rebelheld areas of the northern city in five years.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking to Mayadeen TV from New York, said the government is prepared to take part in a unity government incorporating elements from the opposition, an offer that was rejected in the past.
Opposition activists say more than 200 civilians have been killed in the last week under a sustained aerial campaign that U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called one of the worst of the 5½-year war.
The U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting, but failed to take action because of deep divisions between Russia and Western powers.
“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism, it’s barbarism,” said U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power. “It’s apocalyptic what is being done in eastern Aleppo.”
Airstrikes on Aleppo on Monday killed at least six people, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist-run collective.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported hours later that 12 were killed, including three children.
President Bashar Assad’s media adviser told Al-Mayadeen TV that the Syrian government abided by the ceasefire but the rebels did not. Bouthaina Shaaban said once the truce expired, “our Syrian Arab army resumed its operations against terrorists.”
Al-Moallem accused the United States, Britain, and France of convening the Security Council meeting a day earlier to support “terrorists” inside Syria. But he said ongoing communications between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meant a truce agreement brokered two weeks ago is “not dead.”
Syria’s military declared the cease-fire ended one week ago.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the cease-fire is ineffective, but Moscow is not losing hope for a political solution to the country’s crisis.
However, Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday the Kremlin is concerned that “terrorists are using the cease-fire regime to regroup, to replenish their arsenals and for obvious preparations to carry out attacks.”
Peskov also took issue with harsh criticism by the U.S. and Britain over Russia’s actions in Syria.
He said Russia considers the tone of the criticism unacceptable and “such rhetoric is capable of causing serious harm to the resolution process” in Syria.
Secretary of State John Kerry said the Syrian and Russian governments “seem intent on taking Aleppo and destroying it in the process.”
“While they’re pounding Aleppo, dropping indiscriminate bombs, killing women and children, talk of a unity government is pretty complicated,” Kerry said.
He said the Syrian opposition won’t be “particularly excited about having a negotiation when they’re being bombed and starved.”
U.N. humanitarian officials have condemned the sieges against civilians as “medieval” and in contravention to international law.
In New York, al-Moallem reaffirmed his government’s proposed roadmap to end Syria’s war, saying Damascus would support a referendum on a new constitution followed by parliamentary elections and the formation of a unity government.