UNITED NATIONS – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Russia and the United States to put Syria’s ceasefire back on track and stressed that new truce arrangements in place for two areas must be extended to Aleppo.
Heavy air strikes hit rebel-held east Aleppo in the early hours of Monday, days after the United States and Russia announced plans to reinforce the February 27 truce in Latakia and Damascus regions.
Ban is “profoundly concerned about the dangerous escalation of fighting in and around Aleppo and the intolerable suffering, counted in mounting deaths and destruction, it is causing among civilians,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
The UN chief noted the re-launch of the cessation of hostilities in Damascus and Latakia and stressed “the need to expand these arrangements to other parts of Syria, with a special urgency for Aleppo.”
The appeal came on the eve of talks between Ban’s envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on the collapsing ceasefire.
He called on all international actors, in particular the United States and Russia “to redouble their efforts in support of the Syrian parties to put the cessation of hostilities back on track.”
“The collapse of the cessation of hostilities will only bring more violence, death and destruction while further weakening efforts to find a negotiated solution to this brutal war,” said Ban’s spokesman.
 

Diplomatic push

Kerry was in Geneva for talks with other dignitaries to try to revive the first major ceasefire of the five-year Syrian war, which was put in place in February with U.S. and Russian backing but has since all but collapsed.
Syria announced temporary local truces in other areas last week but has so far failed to extend them to Aleppo, where government air strikes and rebel shelling have killed hundreds of civilians in the past week, including more than 50 people in a hospital that rebels say was deliberately targeted.
The Aleppo fighting threatens to wreck the first peace talks involving the warring parties, which are due to resume at an unspecified date after breaking up in April when the opposition delegation walked out in protest.
“We’re getting closer to a place of understanding, but we have some work to do, and that’s why we’re here,” Kerry said at the start of a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.
After meeting Jubeir and U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, Kerry said he hoped for more clarity in the next day or so on restoring the nationwide ceasefire.

Source: AFP, reuters 2 May 2016