Fighting continues in near Aleppo, government carries out airstrikes
Fighting continues in near Aleppo, government carries out airstrikes
Syrian government forces and their allies fought insurgents near Aleppo on Monday and jets carried out raids around a nearby town seized by Islamist rebels, a monitoring group said, despite international efforts to reduce the violence.
The United States and Russia, who support rival sides in Syria’s civil war, said on Monday that they would work to revive a February “cessation of hostilities” agreement which reduced fighting in parts of the country for several weeks.
But warplanes struck the town of Khan Touman, southwest of Aleppo, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels also fought government forces east of Damascus, and jets struck the rebel-held towns of Maarat al-Numan and Idlib.
A recent surge in bloodshed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war, wrecked the 10-week-old, partial truce sponsored by Washington and Moscow which had allowed UN-brokered peace talks to convene in Geneva.
The talks, attended by government and Opposition delegates including representatives from rebel groups, broke up in April with both sides accusing the other of killing the truce.
Russia and the United States said in a joint statement that they would step up efforts to convince the warring parties to abide by the ceasefire agreement.
“We have decided to reconfirm our commitment to the (ceasefire) in Syria and to intensify efforts to ensure its nation-wide implementation,” they said.
“We demand that parties cease any indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including civilian infrastructure and medical facilities.”
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told US secretary of state John Kerry during a phone call on Monday that measures must be taken to stop “extremists” in Syria being supplied via Turkish territory, the Russian foreign ministry said.
