Southwest Syria truce appears to hold for full day

BEIRUT — Representatives of Syria’s warring parties gathered in Geneva on Monday for the seventh round of peace talks, as a limited truce, negotiated by their bigpower backers, appeared to be holding for a full day in southwest Syria, according to local residents and human rights monitors.

The cease-fire, negotiated by the United States, Russia and Jordan, applies to a strategic area across southwest Syria, near its border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The choice of southwest Syria for a truce reflected the relative stability of the front lines in the area and the small number of extremist fighters among the rebels who could act as spoilers, according to an official involved in the negotiations. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Southwest Syria also has been viewed with increased concern by both Israel and Jordan over what they describe as advances made by Iranian-backed militias fighting alongside the Syrian government, including Hezbollah. A successful cease-fire would stop such advances.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, reported that despite small breaches, including bursts of gunfire at the front lines, the truce had largely held since it went into effect at noon Sunday.

Similar truces have been brokered before between the United States and Russia, which back opposing sides on the battlefield. They have all eventually collapsed.

But this truce was the first to be announced by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump seized on it as a measure of diplomatic victory during his first meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the Group of 20 summit meeting last Friday in Hamburg, Germany.

Russia brokered a truce with Turkey, a rebel sponsor, in northern Syria last December. That, say local residents, has tamped down violence there, notably the Syrian government’s aerial bombing campaign.

The Syrian battlefield is populated by a mix of rebel groups, supported by Jordan, Turkey, the Persian Gulf countries as well as the United States. Backing the government of President Bashar Assad of Syria are soldiers and advisers from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

Syrian and Russian forces have tried to justify their military attacks on many rebel groups as targeting terrorists; al-Qaida affiliates in Syria and the Islamic State group have not been part of the truces.

On Monday, Syrian forces said they had attacked Islamic State fighters in one area covered by the truce, an assertion disputed by local rebels, some of whom have received covert aid from the United States and its allies. They said the area contained no Islamic State fighters.

The latest truce covers three important areas in Syria’s southwest: Dara’a, Quneitra and Sweida. The Syrian government had announced a unilateral truce in those areas last week, with the latest international agreement extending it.