UN halts Syria talks as Assad closes in on Aleppo

A Syrian Army source said the city of Aleppo would soon be encircled by government forces as rebels pounded by Russian airstrikes expressed hope that the failure of Geneva peace talks would encourage their foreign backers to send better weapons.

Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency against President Bas-har al-Assad, said there was no point to peace talks while Russia carried out attacks in Syria. Moscow confirmed a Russian military trainer was killed in Syria this week, but denied that Russian servicemen were fighting on the ground.

The UN on Wednesday suspended the first peace talks in two years, halting an effort that seemed doomed from the start as the war raged unabated on the ground and government forces severed a major rebel supply route into strategically-important Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war began.

Turkey said on Thursday that tens of thousands of refugees from Aleppo were moving towards the border due to airstrikes. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said the first steps in peace talks were undermined by increased aerial bombing. The Army and its allies on Wednesday broke through rebel lines to the northwest of the city, reaching two Shia towns loyal to the government for the first time in 3-1/2 years. If the government regains control of Aleppo, it would be a big blow to insurgents’ hopes of toppling Mr Assad after a war that has divided Syria between western areas mostly still governed from Damascus and much of the rest of the country held by armed groups.

US secretary of state John Kerry said his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov had agreed on the need to discuss how to implement a ceasefire in Syria during a call on Thursday. A Russian defence ministry spokesman was cited as saying the Russian military trainer was killed in the shelling of a Syrian Army training centre in Homs province.

Meanwhile, donor nations pledged on Thursday to give billions of dollars in aid to Syrians as world leaders gathered for a conference in London. British PM David Cameron annou-nced Thursday that the conference had raised over $10 billion for humanitarian aid.

Conference co-hosts Britain, Norway and Germany were the first to announce their pledges, followed by the United States, the EU, Japan and other nations. Britain and Norway promised an extra $1.76 billion and $1.17 billion respectively by 2020, while Germany said it would give $2.57 billion by 2018.

The United States said its contribution this fiscal year would be $890 million.