Beirut, Moscow: Russia signalled that the devastating bombing campaign in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo wouldn’t halt, a day after the US threatened a diplomatic rift if the violence doesn’t end.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said his country was willing to support temporary cessations of hostilities in the northern city for 48 hours at a time, the Interfax news service reported.
“With the goal of ensuring humanitarian access, we’ve repeatedly proposed 48-hour pauses in Aleppo,” Interfax quoted Ryabkov as saying. But he ruled out even a seven-day truce, saying a period that long would allow “terrorist groups to rebuild supplies, rest their fighters and regroup”.
Russia came forward with its proposal after US Secretary of State John Kerry threatened on Wednesday to break off contacts with Moscow over Syria unless the air offensive halts. The fighting in Aleppo has shattered an agreement between the two powers to halt five-and-a-half years of violence in Syria and proceed to peacemaking, and deepened the humanitarian crisis in the city.
Ryabkov said Russia doesn’t see any alternative to its agreement with the US, but “you can’t talk to Russia in the language of ultimatums. It is unacceptable,” Interfax reported.
Russia entered the conflict on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad a year ago, turning the tide in his favour. Earlier this month, the US and Russia reached an accord that called for seven days of calm that would, if successful, lead to cooperation between the US and Russia in targeting Islamist extremists in the country.
That calm never came, as Syria and Russia stepped up the bombardment of Aleppo, the country’s former commercial hub. Russia cited a deadly American air strike on Syrian forces, which Pentagon officials called an accident, and said the US was failing to keep moderate forces it backs from fighting alongside terrorists linked to Al Qaida.
Fierce clashes continued on Thursday between Syrian regime forces backed by allied militias and mostly Islamist rebel groups in Aleppo, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria through activists on the ground.
The fighting is taking place in the historic part of the city, the group said by email. Air strikes targeted the city and other areas in the province held by the rebels overnight, SOHR said.
At least 96 children have been killed and 223 others “injured in merciless attacks this week alone”, according to Anthony Lake, the executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund. Doctors were forced to let some children die while saving others with scarce medical supplies, Lake added in an emailed statement dated on Wednesday.
“The world is watching these horrors unfold. Every day, they continue... and get worse,” he said. “The murder of the innocents in Aleppo must stop.”
The statement came after two of the largest Syrian hospitals in eastern Aleppo — the area where the rebels are entrenched — were targeted by five artillery shells and several air strikes, killing both patients and staff, according to the American Relief Coalition for Syria. One of the hospitals was the only trauma centre that remained in eastern Aleppo, ARCS said in a statement.