Tag Archives: Syrian civil war

Russia says over 8,000 have fled rebel-held Aleppo in last 24 hours

People, who were evacuated from the eastern districts of Aleppo, wait with their belongings in a government held area of Aleppo, Syria,

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian military said on Friday it had helped more than 8,000 Syrian citizens flee parts of eastern Aleppo still controlled by rebels in the last 24 hours, including almost 3,000 children.

The Russian military said in a statement that 14 rebels had also surrendered to Syrian government forces, laying down their weapons and crossing into western Aleppo. They had all been pardoned, it said.

Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday as saying that the Syrian army, which has captured territory including Aleppo’s historic Old City in recent days, had halted military activity to let civilians leave rebel-held territory.

However, Reuters reporters in a government-held part of the city said bombardment could still be heard after his remarks were published. Washington said it had no confirmation that the army had ceased fire.

The Russian defense ministry said its forces were working hard to de-mine areas in eastern Aleppo which Syrian government forces had captured from rebels.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)

France makes new push for Aleppo ceasefire

The sun sets over Aleppo as seen from rebel-held part of the city

By John Irish, Lidia Kelly and Angus McDowall

PARIS/MOSCOW/BEIRUT (Reuters) – France is to launch a new push for United Nations backing for a ceasefire in Syria that would allow aid into the city of Aleppo after some of the heaviest bombing of the war.

As diplomatic efforts resumed, the Syrian military said army commanders had decided to scale back air strikes and shelling in Aleppo to alleviate the humanitarian situation there.

It said civilians in rebel-held eastern Aleppo were being used as human shields and a reduced level of bombardment would allow people to leave for safer areas.

Intense Syrian and Russian bombing of rebel-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo followed the collapse last month of a ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Washington, which backs some rebel groups. The United States broke off talks with Russia on Monday, accusing it of breaking its commitments.

France said Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault would travel to Russia and the United States on Thursday and Friday to try to persuade both sides to adopt a Security Council resolution to impose a new truce.

Ayrault has accused Syria, backed by Russia and Iran, of war crimes as part of an “all-out war” on its people. Damascus rejects the accusation, saying it is only fighting terrorists.

Speaking to French television channel LCI, Ayrault said: “If you’re complicit in war crimes then one day you will be held accountable, including legally. I think with the Russians you have to speak the truth and not try to please them.”

The former prime minister said he would also ask Washington to be “more efficient and engaged” and not allow a laissez-faire attitude to take over just because presidential elections were approaching in November.

“ALL THAT’S LEFT”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Syria by telephone on Wednesday, but no details emerged. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Lavrov would meet Ayrault in Moscow on Thursday.

The two-week-old Russian-backed Syrian government offensive aims to capture eastern Aleppo and crush the last urban stronghold of a revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011.

Half of the estimated 275,000 Syrians besieged in the rebel-held eastern part of the city want to leave, the United Nations said, with food supplies running short and people driven to burning plastic for fuel.

Mothers were reportedly tying ropes around their stomachs or drinking large amounts of water to reduce the feeling of hunger and prioritise food for their children, the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in Geneva.

The Security Council began negotiations on Monday on a French and Spanish draft resolution that urges Russia and the United States to ensure an immediate truce in Aleppo and to “put an end to all military flights over the city”.

“This trip is in the framework of efforts by France to get a resolution adopted at the U.N. Security Council opening the path for a ceasefire in Aleppo and aid access for populations that need it so much,” the French foreign ministry said.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said on Monday that Moscow was engaged in discussions on the draft text even if he was not especially enthusiastic about its language.

The draft text, seen by Reuters, urges Russia and the United States “to ensure the immediate implementation of the cessation of hostilities, starting with Aleppo, and, to that effect, to put an end to all military flights over the city.”

The draft also asks U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to propose options for U.N.-supervised monitoring of a truce and threatens to “take further measures” in the event of non-compliance by “any party to the Syrian domestic conflict”.

A senior Security Council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “In the experts’ negotiations they (Russia) have opposed every single dot and comma of the resolution.”

French officials have said that if Moscow were to oppose the resolution they would be ready to put it forward anyway to force Moscow into a veto, underscoring its complicity with the Syrian government.

“It’s all that’s left,” said a French diplomatic source. “We’re not fools. The Russians aren’t going to begin respecting human rights from one day to the next, but it’s all we have to put pressure on them.”

People walk past damaged buildings in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria,

People walk past damaged buildings in the rebel-held Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria, October 5, 2016. To match Insight MIDEAST-CRISIS/SYRIA-ALEPPO REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

GULF STATES

Ayrault said in the television interview that the situation was unacceptable. “It is deeply shocking and shameful,” he said. “France will not close its eyes and do nothing. It’s cynicism that fools nobody.”

The collapse of the latest Syria ceasefire has heightened the possibility that Gulf states including Saudi Arabia and Qatar – backers of Syrian rebels – might arm the opposition with shoulder-fired missiles to defend themselves against Syrian and Russian warplanes, U.S. officials have said.

Qatar’s foreign minister said outside powers need to act fast to protect Syrians because foreign military backing for the government is “changing the equation” of the war.

A United Nations expert said that analysis of satellite imagery of a deadly and disputed attack on an aid convoy in Syria last month showed that it was an air strike.

Some 20 people were killed in the attack on the U.N. and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy at Urem Al-Kubra near Aleppo.

The United States blamed two Russian warplanes which it said were in the skies above the area at the time of the incident. Moscow denies this and says the convoy caught fire.

“With our analysis we determined it was an air strike and I think multiple other sources have said that as well,” Lars Bromley, research adviser at UNOSAT, told a news briefing.

In northern Syria, rebels were expecting stiff resistance from Islamic State in their attempt to capture a village that is of great symbolic significance to the jihadists, a rebel commander said.

With Turkish backing, rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army banner have advanced to within a few kilometres (miles) of Dabiq, the site of an apocalyptic prophecy central to the militant group’s ideology.

(Writing by Giles Elgood and Philippa Fletcher, editing by Peter Millership)

Syria sees impasse broken as EU urges engagement in peace talks

GENEVA (Reuters) – The head of Syria’s delegation in Geneva said EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini had urged his government to engage positively in peace talks on Wednesday, and he believed the round of talks had broken the diplomatic impasse.

Mogherini arrived unexpectedly in Geneva on Wednesday, possibly highlighting concerns that talks on Syria risk getting deadlocked unless headway on the matter of political transition is made soon.

“She passed on a letter of support for the Syrian-Syrian dialogue,” Bashar Ja’afari told reporters. “She came to support us to engage positively in the talks that would lead to an end to the Syrian crisis,” he said after the rare meeting with a senior Western official.

Mogherini earlier held talks with the chief coordinator for the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Riad Hijab.

Ja’afari told her he wanted the European Union to reopen its embassies and lift sanctions on Damascus, but said that while his team would return for a second round of talks in Geneva, he had told U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura they could not come back before Syrian elections on April 13.

Activists and diplomats said de Mistura was finalizing a document for delegates at peace talks that will synthesize common points of convergence, but is likely to stay clear of the divisive issue of political transition.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria, warring sides are more than a week into talks on ending the conflict, but government officials have rejected any discussion on a political transition or the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any such plan.

Speaking before the negotiations adjourn on Thursday, Ja’afari said he had received a document from envoy Staffan de Mistura.

“We will respond to it at the beginning of the next round,” he said, declining to take any questions.

The five-year-old conflict between the government and insurgents has killed more than 250,000 people, allowed Islamic State to take control of some eastern areas and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis.

The U.N. envoy said on Tuesday that he aimed to establish if there were any points held in common by the different parties. If successful, he would announce these on Thursday.

Randa Kassis, who heads up a Moscow-backed opposition group, said de Mistura would distribute a document of common points gathered from the various delegates.

Points included creating a future unified Syrian army to fight terrorism or ensuring a democratic and non-sectarian based Syria.

“I don’t think much has happened in this round,” Kassis told Reuters. “We’re waiting for a U.S.-Russian accord to solve the (key) issue once and for all. Until they resolve it this process will drag on.”

Jihad Makdissi, head of the Cairo opposition group, confirmed he was also expecting de Mistura to issue a paper on a potential “common vision” for Syria that he believed was on the right path.

“It covers many points important to the Riyadh platform, the Cairo platform, and the Moscow platforms,” he said, referring to the different opposition groups.

A Western diplomat said he believed de Mistura’s new document was an attempt to synthesize views he had heard from his various interlocutors during the round of talks.

The cessation of hostilities deal, engineered by Washington and Moscow three weeks ago, but not signed by any of the warring parties, remains fragile.

Asaad al-Zoubi, head of the HNC’s delegation, said on Tuesday it was “obvious” there were no points of convergence with the Syrian government and accused it of renewing sieges and barrel bombing campaigns against civilians.

Mogherini’s visit coincides with high-level meetings in Moscow between Russian and U.S. officials.

They aim to give fresh impetus to the talks and assess how Russia envisages a political transition in Syria, in particular the fate of Assad.

(Additional reporting By John Irish and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky/Ruth Pitchford)

United States to press Russia on future of Syria’s Assad

MOSCOW/GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to press President Vladimir Putin on how Russia sees a future political transition in Syria and the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

With a fragile truce in place in Syria and warring sides attending peace talks in Geneva, Kerry wants to “get down to brass tacks” on the question of Assad’s future, a State Department official said.

While the United States want Assad to step aside, Russia says only the Syrian people can decide his fate at the ballot box and has bristled at any talk of regime change.

Kerry is holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, in a meeting arranged after the Russian leader’s surprise announcement on March 14 that he was partially withdrawing his forces from Syria.

“The Secretary would like to now really hear where President Putin is in his thinking … on a political transition” in Syria, the official said as Kerry arrived in Moscow.

“Obviously what we are looking for, and what we have been looking for, is how we are going to transition Syria away from Assad’s leadership,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After five years of conflict that has killed over 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis, Washington and Moscow reached a deal three weeks ago for a cessation of hostilities and delivery of humanitarian aid to besieged areas.

The State Department official said meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would evaluate the status of the ceasefire and try to “get on the same page” about ending violations and increasing humanitarian assistance.

UNILATERAL THREAT

Russia this week threatened to act unilaterally against those who violate the ceasefire unless it reached a deal with the United States on ways to detect and prevent truce breaches.

The Syrian opposition has accused government forces of renewing sieges and stepping up a campaign of barrel-bombing across the country.

In Geneva, where warring sides are a week into talks on ending the conflict, government officials have rejected any discussion on the fate of Assad, who opposition leaders say must go as part of any transition.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Syria peace talks were always going to be long and difficult, and it was too early to talk about patience running out on any side.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday he hoped the U.S-Russia meeting would give an impetus to the peace talks where the divisive issue of a political transition is stalling progress.

But the State Department official played down expectations that the meeting would have an immediate impact on the talks, which adjourn on Thursday with the next round expected in early April.

A Syrian activist at the talks, Jihad Makdissi, said de Mistura was planning to issue a paper on a “potential common vision”.

The Syrian government delegation said the U.N. envoy had handed them a document which they would study on their return to Damascus. No details of either paper were disclosed.

However, the United Nations said the Syrian government had given verbal assurances that aid convoys can go into three or four areas that its forces are besieging.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said the United Nations had been allowed to enter eight or nine of the 11 areas it had asked to supply with aid, including three or four besieged areas.

But it had not been allowed to go into the town of Daraya, where the World Food Programme has said some people have been reduced to eating grass.

PALMYRA OFFENSIVE

On the battlefield, Syrian government forces and their allies were reported to have pushed forward against Islamic State fighters to reach the outskirts of the historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday.

State news agency SANA quoted a military source who said the army and allied militia advanced in the hills outside Palmyra and toward a road junction “after eliminating the last terrorist Daesh groups there”, referring to Islamic State fighters. Islamic State is not covered by the truce agreement.

The Syrian army is trying to recapture Palmyra, which Islamic State seized in May, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Clashes raged around Palmyra after government forces took control of most of a nearby hill with air cover from Syrian and Russian warplanes, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Russia has withdrawn around half of its air force in Syria, according to Reuters calculations based on state TV footage, some of which was not broadcast.

But Moscow has maintained a group of Su-24 bombers at its Latakia air base and deployed a number of advanced attack helicopters, meaning it is able to continue a reduced number of air strikes in the country.

Operating from Russia’s Shayrat air base southeast of Homs, the helicopter force will be used to secure territory gains around Aleppo and support the Syrian army offensive against Islamic State in Palmyra, Western officials said.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Jack Stubbs, John Davison, Dominic Evans, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles; Writing by Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)

Syrian government refuses to discuss Assad’s future

GENEVA/BEIRUT (Reuters) – The fate of President Bashar al-Assad will play no part in talks to end the Syrian war, the head of the government’s delegation said, leading the U.N. peace envoy to warn that lack of progress on the issue could threaten a fragile cessation of hostilities.

Damascus delegate Bashar Ja’afari said Assad’s future had “nothing to do” with the negotiations, which entered their second week on Monday, insisting that counter-terrorism efforts remained the priority for the government.

“The (terms of) reference of our talks do not give any indication whatsoever with regard to the issue of the President of the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said when asked about the willingness of the government delegation to engage in serious talks on political transition.

“This is something already excluded.”

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura – who describes Syria’s political transition as “the mother of all issues” – responded by saying the government delegation’s refusal to discuss it could lead to a deterioration of the situation on the ground.

“Everyone more or less agrees, the cessation of hostilities is still holding,” he said. “The same … more or less for the movement on humanitarian aid. But neither of them can be sustained if we don’t get progress on the political transition.”

The fragility of the three-week-old cessation, which was backed by the United States and Russia, was highlighted on Monday when Moscow said it had recorded six violations in the last 24 hours.

The Syrian opposition accused the government delegation of wasting time by refusing to discuss the future of Assad. “It is not possible to wait like this, while the regime delegation wastes time without achieving anything,” said Salim al-Muslat, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee.

DESERT CITY

Arguments over Assad’s fate were a major cause of the failure of previous U.N. peace efforts in 2012 and 2014 to end a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis.

The five-year-old conflict between the government and insurgents has also allowed Islamic State to take advantage of the chaos and take control of areas in the east of the country.

Fighters from the jihadist group – which is excluded from the ceasefire deal – killed 26 Syrian soldiers on Monday west of Palmyra, a monitoring group said, after days of advances by government forces backed by Syrian and Russian air cover.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the Syrian army would soon recapture Palmyra from Islamic State, which has held the desert city for nearly a year.

Palmyra has both symbolic and military value as the site of ancient Roman-era ruins – mostly destroyed by Islamic State – and because of its location on a highway linking mainly government-held western Syria to Islamic State’s eastern stronghold.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting took place about 4 km (2 miles) west of Palmyra.

It was not possible to independently verify the death toll. Syria’s state news agency SANA said the army and allied forces, backed by the Syrian air force, carried out “concentrated operations” against Islamic State around Palmyra and the Islamic State-held town of al-Qaryatayn, about 100 km further west.

After more than five months of air strikes in support of Assad, which turned the course of the civil war in the government’s favour, Putin announced the withdrawal last week of most Russian forces. But Russian planes have continued to support army operations near Palmyra, according to the Observatory and regional media.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Stephanie Nebehay and Ali Abdelatti; Writing by Pravin Char; editing by John Stonestreet)

Syria peace talks grind toward pivotal Assad question

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syrian government negotiators at Geneva peace talks are coming under unaccustomed pressure to discuss something far outside their comfort zone: the fate of President Bashar al-Assad. And they are doing their best to avoid it.

U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura describes Syria’s political transition as “the mother of all issues” and, emboldened by the Russian and U.S. muscle that brought the participants to the negotiating table, he refuses to drop the subject.

After a week of talks in Geneva, he praised the opposition for the depth of their ideas, but criticized the veteran diplomats on the government side for getting bogged down.

“The government is currently focusing very much on principles, which are necessary in any type of common ground on the transition,” he said. “But I hope next week, and I have been saying so to them, that we will get their opinion, their details on how they see the political transition taking place.”

Arguments over Assad’s fate were a major cause of the failure of previous U.N. peace efforts in 2012 and 2014 to end a civil war that has now lasted five years, killed more than 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis.

The main opposition, along with the United States and other Western nations, has long insisted any peace deal must include his departure from power, while the Syrian government and Russia have said there is no such clause in the international agreements that underwrite the peace process.

The Syrian president looked more secure than ever at the start of the latest round of talks, riding high after a Russian-backed military campaign.

But Russia’s surprise withdrawal of most of its forces during the week signaled that Moscow expected its Syrian allies to take the Geneva talks seriously. And de Mistura appointed a Russian expert to sit in the negotiations with him and to advise on political issues.

Unlike previous rounds, the talks have run for a week without any hint of collapse, forcing the government delegation led by Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari to acknowledge de Mistura’s demands.

Ja’afari began by giving de Mistura a document entitled “Basic elements for a political solution”.

“Approving these principles will open a serious dialogue under Syrian leadership without foreign intervention and without preconditions,” Ja’afari said on Friday, in a brief statement after the longest session of the talks so far.

But officials and diplomats involved in the talks variously described the document as “very thin”, “bland” and “off the point”.

It listed familiar goals such as maintaining a secular state and Syria’s territorial integrity and the importance of fighting terrorism, according to sources who have read it. But it said nothing about a political transition.

FILIBUSTER

In sessions with de Mistura, Ja’afari has approached the negotiations as slowly as possible, reopening U.N. resolutions and going through them “by the letter”, said a source with knowledge of the process.

“Mr Ja’afari is still in a kind of delusion of trying to filibuster his way out of town, or to filibuster the opposition out of town,” said a western diplomat.

“He will spend every minute questioning the nature of the opposition, quibbling about the font in the agenda.”

By Friday, de Mistura said Ja’afari’s team needed to go faster and couldn’t avoid the substantive question forever.

“The fact that the government delegation would like to set different rules or play with the terms of this agreement is I think a non-starter,” said opposition delegate Basma Kodmani.

A diplomat involved in the peace process said Assad was not used to having to compromise, and that made Ja’afari’s negotiating position rigid.

“He has to have control. If he gives up 1 percent, he loses 100 percent. He’s designed like that,” the diplomat said.

In three meetings with each side during the week, de Mistura quizzed the negotiators about their ideas, and they were also able to put questions to their rivals through him, one participant said.

The U.N. mediation team spends the sessions “stripping the papers apart and delving deep into the subject and forcing them to do more homework and forcing them to give answers”, said a source with knowledge of the process.

The negotiators do not meet each other, but face de Mistura in a functional, windowless room with desks arranged in a square. There is space for eight or nine people around each side, but the conditions are slightly cramped, and afford no luxury beyond a plastic bottle of mineral water on each desk.

“De Mistura is dragging the regime in with his queries on their position paper, rather than allowing them to talk about what they want,” said the diplomat involved in the peace process.

“The regime had in the past a bit of space to play and to maneuver,” he said. “The regime knows it has to come and stay but is not prepared for the idea that it has to engage the opposition.”

(Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by Pravin Char)

U.N. tells Syrian government to go faster, get specific in Geneva talks

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s government must do more to present its ideas about a political transition and not merely talk about principles of peacemaking, U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura said on Friday after a fifth day of peace talks.

The end of a week of talks in Geneva came as Syria neared the three-week mark in its “cessation of hostilities”, a temporary truce in the five-year-old civil war that has largely held but was marred by “some incidents” on Friday, he said.

“We are in a hurry,” he told reporters after what he called an “intense” day and meetings with Syria’s government delegation and the main opposition, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC).

De Mistura said he had given both sides weekend homework so the negotiations could speed up on Monday, and during the second week of discussions he would go deeper into the issue of a political transition.

He had told the government delegation that they could talk about procedures if they wished, but it was impossible to avoid dealing with the substance, he said.

“In the end, people in Syria don’t need procedure, they need reality and they expect that from us.” Syria’s war has killed more than 250,000 people and caused the world’s worst refugee crisis with more than half the pre-war population displaced.

Next week he aims to build “a minimum common platform” to better understand how to approach a post-war transition, which is the core issue to be tackled at the next round of talks in April, he said. “We are already aiming very clearly for that.”

De Mistura said he had been impressed by the depth of the engagement in the process by the HNC, including substantive points on its vision of a peaceful transition.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has rejected opposition demands he give up power as a precondition for lasting peace.

De Mistura said the talks saw “no walkouts, no excessive rhetoric, no breakdowns… despite the fact that I am obviously still detecting large distances” between the two sides.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, Stephanie Nebehay and Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syria’s Kurds rebuked for seeking autonomous region

RMEILAN, Syria (Reuters) – Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northern regions voted to seek autonomy on Thursday, drawing rebukes from the Damascus government, neighboring power Turkey and Washington over a move that could complicate U.N.-backed peace talks.

The vote to unite three Kurdish-controlled provinces in a federal system appears aimed at creating a self-run entity within Syria, a status that Kurds have enjoyed in neighboring Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The proclamation is an open challenge to many of the sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war, as well as their international sponsors, who have mainly been battling for control of what they say must remain a unified state.

The Kurds, who enjoy U.S. military support, have beaten back Islamic State fighters to control swathes of northern Syria, but the main Syrian Kurdish party, the PYD, has so far been excluded from peace talks that began this week in Geneva.

The three Kurdish-controlled regions agreed at a conference in Rmeilan in northeast Syria to establish the self-administered “federal democratic system of Rojava – Northern Syria”, officials announced. Rojava is the Kurdish name for north Syria.

Officials said at a news conference they intended to begin preparations for a federal system, including electing a joint leadership and a 31-member organizing committee which would prepare a “legal and political vision” for the system within six months.

A document seen by Reuters, issued at the meeting, said the aim was to “establish democratic self-administered regions which run and organize themselves … in the fields of economy, society, security, healthcare, education, defense and culture.”

SWIFT TO DENOUNCE

Both the government of President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey, a regional heavyweight that is one of Assad’s strongest enemies, were swift to denounce the declaration.

“Any such announcement has no legal value and will not have any legal, political, social or economic impact as long as it does not reflect the will of the entire Syrian people,” state news agency SANA cited a foreign ministry source as saying.

An official in Turkey said: “Syria must remain as one without being weakened and the Syrian people must decide on its future in agreement and with a constitution. Every unilateral initiative will harm Syria’s unity.”

Even Washington, which has backed Kurdish fighters with air strikes on Islamic State targets, was displeased.

“We don’t support self-ruled, semi-autonomous zones inside Syria. We just don’t,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

“What we want to see is a unified, whole Syria that has in place a government that is not led by Bashar al-Assad, that is responsive to the Syrian people. Whole, unified, nonsectarian Syria, that’s the goal.”

Turkey fears growing Kurdish sway in Syria is fuelling separatism among its own minority Kurds, and considers the main Syrian Kurdish militia to be an ally of the PKK, which has fought an insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey.

The PYD has consistently said it wants a model of decentralized government for Syria, not partition. The document agreed on Thursday stressed that the federal system would “guarantee the unity of Syrian territory”.

Nawaf Khalil, a former PYD official, played down parallels between Kurdish aspirations in Syria and Iraq, saying Thursday’s announcement was a joint move taken together with the region’s other ethnic communities.

“The experience resulted from discussions with Arabs and Assyrians, Chechens, Armenians, Turkmen. There is a special case in Rojava, it is not like the path taken in Iraq,” he said.

KURDISH CONTROL

Syrian Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted stretch of 250 miles along the Syrian-Turkish border from the Euphrates river to the frontier with Iraq. They also hold a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.

The areas are separated by roughly 60 miles of territory, much of it still held by Islamic State.

A U.S.-backed force which includes Kurdish YPG fighters has been battling Islamic State and other militants, making some gains in Raqqa, Hasaka and Aleppo provinces. Kurdish official Idris Nassan said those “liberated” areas were included in Thursday’s agreement.

On Saturday, Syria’s government in Damascus ruled out the idea of a federal system for the country, just days after a Russian official said that could be a possible model. Russia’s five-month military intervention in Syria helped turn the tide of Syria’s war back in Assad’s favor.

President Vladimir Putin, who has announced the withdrawal of most Russian forces, said on Thursday Moscow’s intervention had created the conditions for Syria’s peace process.

The United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is convening the peace talks in Geneva, suggested last week that a federal model for Syria could be discussed during negotiations.

“All Syrians have rejected division (of Syria) and federalism can be discussed at the negotiations,” he told Al Jazeera television.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington and John Davison in Beirut, Orhan Coskun in Ankara and David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Russia can make powerful Syria military comeback in hours, Putin says

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia could scale up its military presence in Syria again within hours and would still bomb terrorist groups there despite a partial draw-down of forces ordered after military successes.

Speaking in one of the Kremlin’s grandest halls three days after he ordered Russian forces to partially withdraw from Syria, the Russian leader said the smaller strike force he had left behind was big enough to help forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad keep advancing.

“I’m sure that we will see new and serious successes in the near future,” Putin told an audience of more than 700 members of the military at an awards ceremony. In particular, he said he hoped that the ancient city of Palmyra, which is held by Islamic State, would soon fall to Assad’s forces.

“I hope that this pearl of world civilization, or at least what’s left of it after bandits have held sway there, will be returned to the Syrian people and the entire world,” Putin said, referring to the World Heritage Site.

In his first public remarks since ordering the withdrawal, Putin for the first time put an approximate price tag on the Russian operation, saying that the bulk of the expenses – $481.89 million – had been taken from the defense ministry’s war games budget.

There would be other costs, he said, in order to replace ammunition and weapons as well as to make repairs.

Russian air strikes against Islamic State, Al Nusra and other terrorist groups would press on, he said, as would a wide range of measures to aid Syrian government forces including helping them plan their offensives.

Putin said he did not want to have to escalate Russia’s involvement in the conflict again after the draw-down and was hoping peace talks would be successful. But he made clear Russia could easily scale up its forces again.

“If necessary, literally within a few hours, Russia can build up its contingent in the region to a size proportionate to the situation developing there and use the entire arsenal of capabilities at our disposal,” he said.

“THIS PATHWAY TO PEACE”

In a thinly disguised warning to Turkey and others, he said Russia was leaving behind its most advanced S-400 air defense system and would not hesitate to shoot down “any target” which violated Syrian air space.

Unexpectedly, he also paid tribute to a Russian soldier whose death in the five-month operation had previously been unacknowledged. By doing so, Putin tacitly raised the death toll for Russian servicemen to five and confirmed that special forces had been deployed.

Dampening speculation of a rift between Moscow and Damascus over the draw-down, he said the pullout was agreed with Assad beforehand and that the Syrian leader had backed the decision.

Praising Assad for “his restraint, sincere desire for peace and for his readiness for compromise and dialogue”, Putin said the Russian demarche had sent a positive signal for all sides taking part in peace talks in Geneva.

“You, soldiers of Russia, opened up this pathway to peace,” he told the audience.

Russia took the world by surprise by first launching air strikes on Sept.30 last year. The sudden announcement of a partial withdrawal of forces was also unexpected.

U.S. officials have spoken of Russia having “a few thousand troops” in Syria. A Russian military source has told the Interfax news agency that around 1,000 troops would stay, of whom more than half would be military advisers.

Moscow will finish pulling out most of its strike force “any day now” and no later than by the end of this week, Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian air force, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda paper in an interview published on Thursday.

That tallies with an updated Reuters calculation based on state TV and other footage, which shows that as of Thursday 18 or half of Russia’s estimated 36 fixed-wing warplanes had flown out of Syria in the past three days.

Mikhail Barabanov, a senior research fellow at the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said the swift withdrawal was meant to show the world how fleet-footed the Russian air force had become in recent years.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov, Katya Golubkova and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Peter Millership)

Kurdish moves on federalism cloud Syria peace drive

RMEILAN, Syria/GENEVA (Reuters) – Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria are expected to declare a federal system on Thursday, a move likely to further complicate peace talks in Geneva aimed at ending more than five years of war.

Russia pulled more warplanes out of Syria, a new delivery of humanitarian aid reached northern Aleppo province and U.N. mediator Staffan de Mistura named a Russian academic to his team of advisers in a nod to Moscow’s importance in brokering an end to the fighting.

But despite a more than two-week-old “cessation of hostilities” and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to pull out some of his country’s forces that have tipped the balance of the war in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor, any hopes of a breakthrough at the peace talks in Geneva remain slim.

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Wednesday reported 10 new ceasefire violations and the Kurds, after being excluded from the talks in Geneva, appeared to be taking matters into their own hands by drawing up plans to combine three Kurdish-led areas of northern Syrian into a federal arrangement.

The three areas already have de facto autonomy and while it was unclear what the new system would entail, there was no indication it would involve a separation from Syria.

The new arrangement, which a conference in the Kurdish-controlled town of Rmeilan agreed would be announced on Thursday, would alarm neighboring Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish sway in Syria is fuelling separatism among its own minority Kurds.

“Syria’s national unity and territorial integrity is fundamental for us. Outside of this, unilateral decisions cannot have validity,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said.

The United States said on Wednesday it opposed Syrian Kurds forming an autonomous region in northern Syria, but could accept such an arrangement if the Syrians collectively agreed on it.

The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia have been an important ally in the U.S.-led military campaign against Islamic State in Syria, and this has been a point of friction between the United States and its NATO ally Turkey.

However, Bashar Ja’afari, head of the Syrian delegation in Geneva, rejected any talk of a federal model for Syria and ruled out direct talks with the main opposition delegation. The main opposition group’s chief negotiator, Mohamad Alloush, said it had not yet decided whether it would hold direct negotiations with “the regime delegation”.

Ja’afari also said Putin’s announcement of a partial withdrawal of his armed forces on Monday had come as no surprise to the Syrian government, describing it as “common decision, taken both by President Putin and President Assad”.

SYRIA POSITION UNCHANGED

Some Western officials and commentators speculated Putin intended the partial withdrawal to force Damascus to soften its position at the talks to improve chances of progress, but Ja’afari signaled no change in its stance.

Yet Putin’s announcement surprised the West. He cited Russian military success in Syria as the reason for the drawdown, but his belief that the intervention delivered him a seat at the top table of world affairs may have tipped his hand.

De Mistura’s appointment of Vitaly Naumkin plays into this narrative. A former Soviet army officer, Naumkin is an expert on Islam and the Arab world and served as a moderator at earlier peace talks on Syria that were held in Moscow.

But talking about the latest round of talks last week, Naumkin told Russia’s RIA news agency: “There are no expectations. It is a difficult, complicated negotiation process.”

The Geneva talks are part of a diplomatic push launched with U.S. and Russian support to end a conflict that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.

U.S.-Russian cooperation has already brought about a lull in the war via the “cessation of hostilities agreement”, though many violations have been reported.

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that in the preceding 24 hours there had been four violations in Aleppo province, three in Latakia and one each in Idlib, Homs and Hama.

Opening the indirect talks on Monday, de Mistura said Syria faced a “moment of truth”, and he has described Putin’s decision to withdraw some Russian forces as a “significant development”.

Regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are deeply at odds over Syria, welcomed Putin’s move and the Arab League said it would help the U.N.-mediated talks to end the conflict.

Just under half of Russia’s fixed-wing strike force based in Syria has flown out in the past two days, according to Reuters calculations based on state television footage.

The precise number of planes that Russia kept at its Hmeymim base in Syria’s Latakia province is secret. But analysis of satellite imagery, air strikes and Defence Ministry statements suggested it had about 36 fixed-wing military warplanes there.

In the past two days, at least 15 of those planes – including Su-24, Su-25, Su-30 and Su-34 jets – have been seen on television flying out though Reuters could not independently verify the movements of the aircraft.

RUSSIAN JETS IN ACTION

Despite the partial withdrawal, Russian warplanes have been carrying out new sorties against positions belonging to Islamic State, which is not covered by the cessation of hostilities.

RIA said Russia had also started supplying weapons to Iraqi Kurds, including five Zu-23-2 anti-aircraft cannons and 20,000 shells for the cannons.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said his country was not sure Putin’s drawdown announcement was genuine.

“We’ve seen before, in Ukraine, Russia talking about a withdrawal, and then it turned out to be merely a rotation of forces,” he said during a visit to Baghdad, adding he could not foresee “enduring peace” with Assad in power.

Moscow has rejected calls for Assad to be forced to step aside. He also still enjoys military backing from Iran, which has sent forces to Syria along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The United States has also been carrying out air strikes in Syria. An Islamic State-linked website said the jihadist group had shot down a military plane near Kirkuk in Iraq, but U.S. officials said they knew nothing of such reports.

Under the cessation of hostilities, fresh humanitarian aid has reached areas hit by recent fighting. A new convoy of 26 trucks brought aid to about 13,000 families in northern Aleppo province, the Red Cross said.

The delivery by the Syrian Red Crescent to towns including Azaz, Afrin and Tal Rifaat was the largest in the area for weeks, Red Cross spokesman Pawel Krzysiek said. Clinics had been resupplied in the meantime, he said.

On the second day of talks in Geneva on Tuesday, opposition negotiators demanded that the government detail its thoughts on a political transition in Syria and said there had been no progress on freeing detainees.

The moves in Rmeilan, which was discussing a “Democratic Federal System for Rojava – Northern Syria”, further complicated hopes of progress in Geneva. Rojava is the Kurdish name for northern Syria.

Syrian Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted stretch of 250 miles along the Syrian-Turkish border from the Euphrates River to the frontier with Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed autonomy since the early 1990s. They also hold a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.

(Additional reporting by John Davison and Dominic Evans, Tom Perry, Rodi Said in Rmeilan, Syria, Tom Miles in Geneva, Angus MacDowall in Riyadh, Mostafa Hashem in Cairo, Tulay Karadeniz in Istanbul, Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in Dubai, Andrew Osborn in Moscow, and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Pravin Char, Don Durfee and G Crosse)