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Syrian army says truce is over, blames rebels
DAMASCUS: Syria’s armed forces said on Monday that a week-long ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was over, blaming rebels for the failure of the
DAMASCUS: Syria’s armed forces said on Monday that a week-long ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was over, blaming rebels for the failure of the truce.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said meanwhile that the terms had not been met for a key aspect of the deal — US-Russia cooperation against jihadists in Syria.
In a statement carried by state news agency SANA, Syria’s army said a freeze on fighting it had announced last week had ended, blaming rebel groups it said “did not commit to a single element” of the truce deal.
The truce backed by world powers aimed to help end Syria’s brutal five-year conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced millions.
But after several days of relative calm, fighting escalated across major battlefronts, culminating in a deadly US-led air raid at the weekend on a Syrian army position and fresh strikes on Aleppo.
The truce “was supposed to be a real chance to stop the bloodshed, but the armed terrorist groups flouted this agreement,” Monday’s army statement said.
Syria’s armed forces “exercised the highest degree of self-restraint while facing violations by terrorist groups,” it said.
Kerry -- who brokered the deal along with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov -- said in New York that Russia had failed to meet its side of a deal to enforce the truce, but that Washington was willing to keep working on it.
Under the terms of an agreement, the US military would set up a joint cell with Russian forces to target Syrian jihadists if the ceasefire held.
Kerry had earlier insisted the ceasefire was “holding but fragile”. He told reporters that American officials were “meeting now with the Russians in Geneva. That process is continuing and we’ll see where we are in the course of the day.”
