U. S., Russia announce cease- fire deal and aid plan

MUNICH — Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, said they had agreed on the delivery over the next few days of desperately needed aid to besieged Syrian cities, to be followed by a cease- fire that is supposed to clear the way for renewed peace talks.

“We have agreed to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities in one week’s time,” Kerry said. “That is ambitious.”

“The real test is whether all the parties honor those commitments,” he said, sitting next to Lavrov.

If executed, the agreement, forged by the International Syria Support Group, would mark the first sustained and formally declared halt to fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, early in the Arab uprisings.

But the cease- fire would be partial — it excludes the Islamic State and the Al- Nusra Front, both designated as terrorist organizations by the United Nations — and highly fragile.

Kerry and Lavrov could not say whether leaders of all the fractious rebel groups have agreed to go along.

Of more concern to U. S. officials, the cease- fire would essentially freeze in place the recent battlefield gains that President Bashar Assad’s forces have made with the help of Russian air strikes. The city of Aleppo, in rebel hands for four years, has been encircled by Assad’s troops and bombed by Russian aircraft.

Russia had proposed the March 1 cease- fire date, which the U. S. and others saw as a ploy to give Moscow and the Syrian army three more weeks to try to crush Western- and Arab- backed rebels. The U. S. countered with demands for an immediate stop to the fighting.

Kerry and Lavrov said the U. S. and Russia would co- chair both the working group on humanitarian aid as well as a task force that will try to deal with the “modalities” of the temporary truce. That task force will include members of the military along with representatives from countries that are supporting various armed groups in Syria.

The Syrian government and the opposition would both have to agree to the details.

There are many reasons to question whether either the relief effort or a meaningful cease- fire will come to pass, or achieve the goal of ending a five- year- long conflict.

But the announcement early Friday in Munich marked the first time there was hope of a break in the violence since the civil war broke out in 2011. And it would mark the first largescale aid to the country, from where millions have fled.