The UN chief said Monday a fragile Syria ceasefire was holding “by and large” despite “incidents” of fighting at the weekend and the opposition warning that the truce was facing a “complete nullification.”
“As of now I can tell you that by and large the cessation of hostilities is holding even though we have experienced some incidents,” United Nations Secretary Genera Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva.
A UN-backed taskforce was also set to meet to evaluate various accusations of breaches.
The taskforce monitoring the truce is “now trying to make sure that this does not spread any further and that this cessation of hostilities can continue.”
That taskforce would meet at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT), the top UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told AFP.
The tenuous truce, negotiated by Washington and Moscow and backed by the UN, entered its third day despite reports of violations on both sides.
The special international task force co-chaired by the United States and Russia last met on Saturday, just hours after the cessation of hostilities began.
It is one of several mechanisms in place to oversee and deal with violations of the agreement.
Syrian opposition warning
On Monday, a Syrian opposition official told Al Arabiya’s sister channel Al Hadath that the fragile truce is facing a “complete nullification” because of Bashar al-Assad government’s attacks.
Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee’s delegation to peace talks, said the truce which came into effect early on Saturday had collapsed before it started.

“We have alternatives to protect our people” if the international community could not, it quoted him as saying without elaborating.
The Syrian opposition has also sent a letter to the Security Council, saying that Russian war jets on Sunday have executed 26 raids on Syrian rebel factions who were already implementing the ceasefire.
The letter also accused Moscow of dropping cluster bombs on residential buildings, which led to the killing of many civilians.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government said on Monday Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was trying to thwart a fragile cessation of hostilities agreement.
“What Adel al-Jubeir says … about a plan B regarding the current developments in Syria is merely … an attempt to thwart the cessation of hostilities,” a Syrian foreign ministry official was quoted as saying in a statement on state media.

 
Source: Al-Arabiya, AFP, Reuters, 29 Feb 2016