Tag Archives: Truce

When to end the war? North Korea, U.S. at odds over path to peace

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump shows the document, that he and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signed acknowledging the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. At right is U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – Washington’s reluctance to declare an end to the Korean War until after North Korea abandons its nuclear arsenal may put it at odds not only with Pyongyang, but also with allies in South Korea.

The 1950-1953 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the U.S.-led United Nations forces technically still at war with North Korea.

Friday marks 65th anniversary of the truce, which will be commemorated by the United Nations Command in a ceremony in the fortified demilitarized zone that has divided the two Koreas since the war. North Korean veterans of the war, which left more than 1.2 million dead, will gather in Pyongyang for a conference.

In their April summit, the leaders of North and South Korea agreed to work this year with the United States and China, which also played a major role in the war, to replace the armistice with a peace agreement.

In June, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a statement saying they would seek “to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity,” using the initials of the North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Kim has broadly committed to the “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” if the United States and its allies drop their “hostile” policies and the North has made clear it sees an official end to the state of war as crucial to lowering tensions.

Many experts and officials in Washington, however, fear signing a peace deal first could erode the international pressure they believe led Kim to negotiate. It could also endanger the decades-long U.S. military alliance with South Korea, and may undermine the justification for the U.S. troops based on the peninsula.

“Broadly speaking, one side wants denuclearization first, normalization of relations later, and the other wants normalization of relations first, then denuclearization later,” said Christopher Green, a senior advisor at the International Crisis Group.

North Korea says it has taken steps to halt its nuclear development, including placing a moratorium on missile and nuclear bomb testing, demolishing its only known nuclear test site, and dismantling a rocket facility.

American officials have praised those moves, but remain skeptical. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress on Wednesday North Korea was continuing to produce fuel for nuclear bombs.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said while “peace on the Korean Peninsula is a goal shared by the world,” the international community would not accept a nuclear armed North Korea.

“As we have stated before, we are committed to building a peace mechanism with the goal of replacing the Armistice agreement when North Korea has denuclearized,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

DOUBTS ON BOTH SIDES

In recent weeks Pyongyang has renewed calls for a declaration of the end of the war, calling it the “first process for peace” and a key way the United States can add heft to its guarantees of security.

“The adoption of the declaration on the termination of war is the first and foremost process in the light of ending the extreme hostility and establishing new relations between the DPRK and the U.S.,” North Korean state media said in a statement on Tuesday.

After Pompeo visited Pyongyang in June for talks, state media quoted a spokesman for the North’s Ministry of the Foreign Affairs criticizing the U.S. delegation for not mentioning the idea of a peace regime.

“It seems quite obvious that even if North Korea is negotiating sincerely, they aren’t going to be willing to give up their nuclear capacity in the absence of a peace system that gives them regime security,” Green said.

Many officials in Washington appeared concerned that an early declaration of peace could lead to the collapse of the U.S.-South Korea alliance with calls for U.S. troops to leave the Korean peninsula, he added.

OTHER PLAYERS

South Korean leaders in 1953 opposed the idea of a truce that left the peninsula divided, and were not signatories to the armistice. The treaty was signed by the commander of North Korea’s army, the American commander of the U.N. Command, and the commander of the “Chinese People’s volunteers”.

While South Korean officials say they are committed to the full denuclearization of North Korea, they have shown more flexibility in the timing of a peace agreement than their U.S. allies.

South Korea’s Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said on Tuesday it is possible to declare an end to war this year.

“We are in consultations with the North and the United States in that direction,” he told a parliamentary session, adding that a three-way declaration would be part of an initial phase of denuclearization.

China says it is open to participating in the process.

Meeting North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Pyongyang on Thursday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said China supported the reconciliation process between the North and the United States, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

China is willing to work hard with all sides to promote the process of establishing a “peace mechanism” for the Korean peninsula, Kong added, without elaborating.

(Additional reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Clarence Fernandez)

Recovery of U.S. troops’ remains in North Korea hindered by cash, politics

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un leave after signing documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Joyce Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) – When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un agreed in June to help return the remains of American troops killed in the 1950-53 Korean War, it was seen as one of the more attainable goals to come out of his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

American officials expect North Korea to hand over around 50 sets of remains in coming weeks, but the drawn-out process of negotiations to get to this point highlights the complications involved in the issue.

At the heart of the difficulty, former officials involved in previous recovery missions say, are likely demands from North Korea for cash compensation, as well as the unsolved tensions over North’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenal.

More than 7,700 U.S. troops who fought in the Korean War remain unaccounted for, with about 5,300 of those lost in what is now North Korea, according to the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), the U.S. military agency tasked with tracking down prisoners of war and troops missing in action.

The Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the United States and North Korea still technically at war.

Soon after the June summit, Trump announced North Korea had returned the remains of 200 soldiers that had already been found. However, negotiations over the actual handing over of the remains have dragged on.

“The North Koreans are using the remains issue as a bargaining chip,” said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. diplomat with experience negotiating with North Korea, including during the recovery of the remains of seven Americans in 2007.

“They’re stalling,” he told Reuters in an interview by phone. “I think in the end the North Koreans will turn over the majority of the remains that they have – but it will have a price. Not just a financial price.”

REMAINS RETURNED

Between the 1990 and 2005, more than 400 caskets of remains found in North Korea were returned to the United States, and the bodies of some 330 Americans were accounted for, according to the DPAA.

Decades-old remains that North Korea has handed over in the past have not always been identifiable as U.S. troops.

The U.S. and North Korea worked together on so-called joint field activities (JFAs) to recover remains from 1996-2005 until Washington halted operations expressing concerns about the safety of its personnel.

A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report said the United States paid $28 million to North Korea for assistance in the effort.

“To the best of my knowledge, it was never based on a per body calculation. Payments were made in support of each field mission – each joint recovery operation,” said Frank Jannuzi, a former Democratic Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer focusing on East Asian and Pacific affairs. Payments were to compensate North Korea for direct expenses incurred such as fuel costs, disruption of agricultural planting, or equipment costs, he said.

In 2011, Barack Obama’s administration agreed with Pyongyang to restart recovery missions, offering to pay $5,669,160 in “compensation” for services provided by North Korea.

Those planned missions never happened, however, as Washington called off the deal after North Korea tested a rocket in early 2012, said Paul M. Cole, author of ‘POW/MIA Accounting’.

“If the past is any indicator, the (North Koreans) are demanding up-front deliveries of food, fuel and at least $5 million in cash,” Cole told Reuters. “In the era of ‘maximum pressure,’ the dilemma for the Trump administration is whether to give the (North Koreans) massive amounts of food, fuel, trucks, SUVs and millions in cash, or cancel the deal.”

Former officials say typically North Korea has not asked for compensation when it unilaterally returns remains it recovers, such as the roughly 200 currently being discussed.

But if the United States hopes to send its own teams into North Korea, there will likely be a cost.

Asked whether the cost of future joint field activities would be similar to what was paid in the past, the Pentagon’s DPAA Public Affairs Office said: “As of yet, there are no JFAs scheduled in North Korea so we cannot speculate on what such activities may cost.”

The U.S. State Department did not have an immediate comment on the negotiations, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on June North Korea had made a commitment to unilateral return the first remains “in the next couple weeks”.

According to CRS, the United States also paid for recovery operations in Vietnam. As with North Korea, critics complained the Vietnamese government charged “extraordinarily high fees for providing support… and that the services received are by no means as lavish as the bills presented indicate”.

South Korea’s former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-han said Pyongyang would likely want to use the return of remains to improve its relations with Washington while avoiding addressing more touchy subjects such as denuclearization.

“North Korea wants the war declared ended sooner rather than later so trust can be built and progress on its international standing can be made,” he said, adding that any “reimbursements” were likely to violate sanctions.

Besides being politically sensitive, however, handing the North Korean government stacks of cash offers no guarantee that authenticated U.S. servicemen’s remains would be recovered, Jannuzi said.

“We might spend a million dollars and come up with nothing.”

(Additional reporting by Jeongmin Kim and Josh Smith in SEOUL, Arshad Mohammed and Daphne Psaledakis in WASHINGTON; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Russia orders five-hour daily truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta

A child and a man are seen in hospital in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

By Angus McDowall and Jack Stubbs

BEIRUT/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will establish a humanitarian corridor and implement a five-hour daily truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta, it said on Monday, after a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire across the entire country.

Over the past week Syria’s army and its allies have subjected the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta near Damascus to one of the heaviest bombardments of the seven-year war, killing hundreds.

On Sunday health authorities there said several people had suffered symptoms consistent with chlorine gas exposure and on Monday rescue workers and a war monitor said seven small children were killed by air and artillery strikes in one town.

“Eastern Ghouta cannot wait, it is high time to stop this hell on earth,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, calling for implementation of the ceasefire.

Fighting has raged across Syria since Saturday’s resolution, as Turkey presses its offensive against a Kurdish militia in Afrin, rival rebel groups fight each other in Idlib and a U.S.-led coalition targets Islamic State in the east..

Russia’s defense minister was cited by the RIA news agency as saying President Vladimir Putin had ordered a daily ceasefire in eastern Ghouta from 9am to 2pm each day and for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to allow civilians to leave.

Russia, along with Iran and Shi’ite militias, is a major backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and it joined the war on his side in 2015, helping him claw back important areas.

The Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, did not say whether the Syrian government or other allied forces had agreed to abide by the five-hour daily truce.

Mohamad Alloush, the political chief of one of eastern Ghouta’s biggest rebel factions, said the Syrian army and its allies had launched “a sweeping ground assault” after the U.N. resolution, adding it was vital that the truce be implemented.

“We hope for real, serious, practical action,” he said.

DEATHS

A picture issued by Civil Defence rescue workers, which Reuters could not independently verify, showed seven small bodies lying next to each other, wrapped in white and blue sheets, after air and artillery strikes on the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said four of them were among a single family of nine killed by an air strike. The other three were among seven killed by shelling in the same town, it said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said allegations the Syrian government was responsible for any chemical attack, after reports of people suffering symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning, were aimed at sabotaging the truce.

The Syrian government has consistently denied using chemical weapons in the war, which will soon enter its eighth year having killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 23 million from their homes.

Man with a child are seen in hospital in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

Man with a child are seen in hospital in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

The bombardment of eastern Ghouta over the past week has been one of the heaviest of the war, killing at least 556 people in eight days, according to a toll compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.

The intensity of the bombardment has diminished since the U.N. resolution, the Observatory said, but it added that 21 people had been killed in eastern Ghouta on Monday, including the seven small children in the photograph.

Rebel shelling has caused 36 deaths and a number of injuries in Damascus and nearby rural areas in the last four days, Zaher Hajjo, a government health official, told Reuters.

Speaking in Riyadh, deputy director general of the World Health Organisation, Peter Salama, said the WHO urgently needed to evacuate 750 medical cases from eastern Ghouta.

“We also need sustained access for medical equipment and for medical drugs and commodities,” he said, adding that some supplies had been “systematically removed from convoys”.

RELATIVE LULL

In eastern Ghouta, people were making use of a relative lull in the bombardment to find provisions, said Moayad Hafi, a rescue worker based there.

“Civilians rushed from their shelters to get food and return quickly since the warplanes are still in the sky and can hit at any moment,” he told Reuters in a voice message.

Lavrov said the ceasefire would not cover either the Ahrar al-Sham or the Jaish al-Islam factions, describing them as partners of the former al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front.

The two major rebel factions in eastern Ghouta are Jaish al-Islam and Failaq al-Rahman. Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of jihadists including Nusra, also has a small presence there.

A young boy rides a bicycle, near damaged houses, after an air raid in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria February 23.

A young boy rides a bicycle, near damaged houses, after an air raid in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Syria February 23.
REUTERS/Bassam Khabieh

“Partners of al-Nusra are not protected by the ceasefire regime. They are also subject to the legitimate actions of Syrian armed forces and all those who support the Syrian army,” said Lavrov.

In Idlib, Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir al-Sham have been battling each other in recent days, rather than working in partnership.

Syrian state television reported that army units had advanced against militants near Harasta in eastern Ghouta. State news agency SANA also reported that the army had stopped a car bomb being driven into Damascus.

The Nusra Front has consistently been excluded from ceasefires in Syria, and the opposition says the government has used this as an excuse to keep up its bombardments.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis and Dahlia Nehme in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Sarah Dadouch in Riyadh and Polina Ivanova in Moscow Editing by Gareth Jones)

Rockets, gunfire test new Russia-backed truce near Syria’s Homs

A boy rides on a tricycle along a damaged street in the besieged area of Homs,

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Warring sides exchanged rocket and gunfire north of the Syrian city of Homs overnight, hours after a Russia-backed truce took effect, a war monitor said on Friday, while heavy rocket fire also marred a similar deal east of the capital Damascus.

Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, said on Thursday its defense ministry and Syria’s opposition had agreed to set up a “de-escalation” zone in the rebel-held countryside north of government-held Homs.

After an initial few hours of calm, the rebels and government forces and their allies began to target each other’s territory. The monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory, said it had so far not received reports of any deaths.

The Russia-backed truce was similar to a de-escalation deal worked out in July for the besieged Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave east of Damascus.

Despite the deal and some reduction in violence, air strikes, rockets and exchanges of fire have continued to hit Eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory said since the Eastern Ghouta truce was declared on July 22 it had recorded at least 25 civilian deaths, including seven children, and dozens of injuries. Russia said it had deployed its military police in Eastern Ghouta in July to try to enforce the de-escalation zone.

Eastern Ghouta, the only major rebel-held area near the capital, has been blockaded by Syrian government forces since 2013. It has shrunk considerably in size over the past year as the Russia-backed Syrian army has taken control of other rebel-held areas around Damascus.

The Observatory said on Friday around 70 rockets had fallen in 24 hours on Eastern Ghouta in the heaviest bombing since the de-escalation zone was declared.

Several attempts at a lasting ceasefire in western Syria, where rebels have lost ground to government forces and their allies, have collapsed with both sides blaming the other for outbreaks of violence.

 

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Gareth Jones)

 

Syrian warplanes strike near Damascus during fragile truce

Children play near rubble of damaged buildings in al-Rai town, northern Aleppo countryside, Syria

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government warplanes resumed their bombardment of a rebel-held valley near Damascus on Sunday after nearly 24 hours with no air raids, a rebel official and monitors said, during the third day of a fragile ceasefire.

The truce deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey which back opposing sides in the conflict and welcomed unanimously by the United Nations Security Council, has been repeatedly violated since it began, with warring sides trading the blame.

Rebels on Saturday warned they would abandon the truce if the government side continued to violate it, asking the Russians, who support President Bashar al-Assad, to rein in army and militia attacks in the valley by 8:00 p.m.

Bombardments ceased before that time – although some clashes continued – but began again late on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the rebels would abandon the truce as a result. Like previous Syria ceasefire deals it has been shaky from the start with repeated outbreaks of violence in some areas, but has largely held elsewhere.

The raids hit areas of Wadi Barada, where government forces and their allies launched an operation more than a week ago, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

There was a “fierce attack and attempt by Assad and Shi’ite militias to raid Wadi Barada” from nearby hills, the rebel spokesman, Mohammed Rasheed, said.

State media and the Observatory said hundreds of people had left Wadi Barada in the past day for government-controlled areas nearby.

Earlier on Sunday government warplanes carried out several air strikes in the southern Aleppo countryside, the Observatory and rebel officials said.

Government forces also advanced overnight against rebels in the Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus, seizing 10 farms, the Observatory said.

A second rebel official suggested that low-level clashes on the ground would not necessarily derail the truce, but that air strikes were a “clear violation”.

Russia’s defence ministry has accused the insurgents in turn of violating the ceasefire numerous times.

A military news outlet run by Lebanese group Hezbollah, an ally of Assad, said the Syrian army had been targeting militants from the former Nusra Front both in southern Aleppo province and in Wadi Barada.

The army has said the group, previously al Qaeda’s Syria branch, is not included in the ceasefire deal but rebels say it is – just one point of friction and confusion in the deal which could lead to its collapse.

The latest truce agreement is the first not to involve the United States or the United Nations – a reflection of Moscow’s growing diplomatic influence after a long campaign of Russian air strikes helped Assad recapture the northern city of Aleppo last month.

That victory has greatly strengthened the president’s  position as the warring sides prepare for peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana this month.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Stephen Powell)

Putin and Erdogan push for Syria talks without U.S. or U.N.

By Andrew Osborn and Nick Tattersall

MOSCOW/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said he and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan are working to organize a new series of Syrian peace talks without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations.

In a snub to Washington, Putin made clear on Friday that the initiative was the sole preserve of Moscow and Turkey and that the peace talks, if they happened, would be in addition to intermittent U.N.-brokered negotiations in Geneva.

“The next step is to reach an agreement on a total ceasefire across the whole of Syria,” Putin said in Tokyo. “We are conducting very active negotiations with representatives of the armed opposition, brokered by Turkey.”

Putin, who has leveraged Russia’s role in Syria to boost his diplomatic muscle, said the talks proposal was being put to the Syrian government and the opposition. Kazakhstan, the proposed venue, is a Russian ally, and Putin said the talks could take place in Astana, the Kazakh capital.

The surprise move underlines the growing strength of Moscow’s rapprochement with Ankara, with which it fell out last year over the shooting down of a Russian plane, and reflects Russia’s desire to cement its growing influence in the Middle East and more widely.

It also shows how fed up Russia is with what it sees as long and pointless talks with the Obama administration over Syria. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week dismissed those talks as “fruitless sitting around” and said Ankara might prove a more effective partner on Syria.

Turkey, which wants to boost its global sway too, is also deeply frustrated by U.S. policy in Syria, particularly Washington’s support for Kurdish militia fighters it sees as a hostile force, and by what it views as Barack Obama’s failure to give enough support to the rebels.

Putin played down the idea that the talks would sideline or overshadow similar talks brokered by the United Nations that have been held intermittently in Geneva.

“It won’t compete with the Geneva talks, but will complement them. Wherever the conflicting sides meet, in my view it is the right thing to do to try to find a political solution,” he said.

The initiative is unlikely to go down well with U.N. envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura however. He told reporters in Paris on Thursday that it was time for all sides to return to the table, but the United Nations would have to broker any talks for them to have legitimacy.

ODD COUPLE

Russia still hopes it can co-operate on Syria with the United States and join forces with Washington against Islamic State once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

But Trump will not be inaugurated until Jan. 20, leaving a power vacuum, and is likely in any case to need some time to formulate foreign policy.

The alliance between Moscow and Ankara is at first glance an odd one. Russia is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s closest allies, while Turkey, a NATO member, wants him removed.

But Ankara may be ready to accept a transition in which Assad is involved, provided he ultimately relinquishes power.

Turkey’s main priority, on which it will want at least tacit Russian agreement, is to ensure that Kurdish militias are unable to gain further territory in Syria along its borders.

Ankara launched an incursion into Syria, “Operation Euphrates Shield”, in August to push Islamic State out of a 90-km (55-mile) stretch of frontier territory and prevent Kurdish groups from seizing ground in their wake.

Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli acknowledged two weeks ago that Turkey “would not have moved so comfortably” without the rapprochement with Russia, which effectively controls parts of northern Syrian air space.

Turkey now wants the rebels it supports to push further south into Syria and take the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, around 40 km northeast of Aleppo.

Erdogan is determined that the Turkish-backed rebels capture the city to prevent Kurdish militias from doing so. But that ambition could cause difficulties with Moscow, as al-Bab lies close to the front lines of Assad’s allies.

ALEPPO DEAL

Putin had only warm words for the prospect of deeper Russo-Turkish co-operation however and said the evacuation of rebels from Aleppo was something that he and Erdogan had agreed on.

He hoped the Syrian army would be able to consolidate its position in Aleppo and civilians return to normal life.

The RIA agency this week quoted Andrei Kelin, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, as saying it had been easier to deal with Turkey on Aleppo than the United States.

“It was much more straightforward to reach agreements with Turkey than with the Americans,” he was cited as saying.

Putin played down the Syrian government’s recent loss of Palmyra to Islamic State, blaming the lack of coordination between the U.S. led coalition, the Syrian authorities, and Russia for the setback.

“Everything that is happening in Palmyra is the result of uncoordinated action,” said Putin.

“The question of Palmyra is purely symbolic. Aleppo is much more important from a military-political point of view.”

(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova in Tokyo and John Irish in Paris; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Fighting further buries hopes for Syria truce

A man carries an injured child after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016.

By Tom Perry and John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels and pro-government forces battled each other on major frontlines near Aleppo and Hama, and air strikes reportedly killed a dozen people including four medical workers, as a ceasefire appeared to have completely unraveled.

The renewed battles demonstrated the thin prospects for reviving a truce that collapsed into fresh fighting and bombardments on Monday, including an attack on an aid convoy which U.S. officials believe was carried out by Russian jets. Moscow denies involvement.

The U.N. Security Council was due to hold a high-level meeting on Syria later on Wednesday.

Despite accusing Moscow of being behind the bombing of the aid convoy, the United States says the ceasefire agreement it sponsored jointly with Russia is “not dead”.

But the deal, probably the final hope of reaching a settlement on Syria before the administration of President Barack Obama leaves office, is following the path of all previous peace efforts in Syria: still being touted by diplomats long after the warring parties appeared to have abandoned it.

Overnight fighting was focused in areas that control access to Aleppo city, where the rebel-held east has been encircled by government forces, aided by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, for all but a few weeks since July.

Syrian state media and a TV station controlled by its Lebanese ally Hezbollah said the army had recaptured a fertilizer factory in the Ramousah area to the southwest of the city. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring body, confirmed the advance and said government forces had pressed forward near an apartment complex nearby.

A rebel fighter in the Aleppo area said warplanes had been bombing all night in preparation for an attack. But “the regime’s attempts to advance failed,” said the rebel, speaking to Reuters from the Aleppo area via the internet.

A Syrian military source said insurgent groups were mobilizing to the south and west of Aleppo, and in the northern Hama area. “We will certainly target all these gatherings and mobilizations they are conducting.”

The army reported carrying out air strikes on seven areas near Aleppo. The Observatory said an air strike killed four medical workers and at least nine rebel fighters in the insurgent-held town of Khan Touman south of Aleppo, saying the rebels were part of the Islamist alliance Jaish al-Fatah.

The medical staff killed were working for the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), it said. UOSSM confirmed in a statement that at least four of its staff had been killed.

Syrian government forces also launched a major advance in Hama province in the West of the country.

“It is a very intense attack, for which Russian jets paved the way, but it was repelled by the brothers, praise God,” Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel commander fighting as part of the Islamist Jaish al-Fatah alliance, told Reuters.

He said rebels had destroyed four tanks and inflicted heavy losses on government troops. Syrian state TV said government forces had killed a number of insurgents and destroyed their vehicles.

Rebel sources also reported an attempt by pro-government forces to advance in the Handarat area to the north of Aleppo, saying this too had been repelled. Pro-government media made no mention of that attack.

The Observatory reported that a Syrian jet had crashed near Damascus, saying the cause of the crash and fate of the pilot were unknown. Islamic State said it had been shot down.

People inspect a damaged site after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016.

People inspect a damaged site after airstrikes on the rebel held al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

“BAR OF DEPRAVITY”

The truce brokered by the United States and Russia took effect on Sept. 12 as part of a deal meant to facilitate aid access to besieged areas.

Foreign ministers of 20 countries including the United States and Russia met to discuss it on Tuesday and gave the agreement their support. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after the meeting: “The ceasefire is not dead”.

In the pact, the details of which remain secret, Washington and Moscow, which back opposing sides in the war between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and insurgents, agreed to jointly target jihadists that are their common enemy.

But such unprecedented cooperation, at a time when trust between the Cold War-era foes is at its lowest for decades, was always a risky gamble. Kerry agreed the deal despite scepticism among other senior U.S. administration figures, and has acknowledged that it is fragile and uncertain.

Tensions between the United States and Russia escalated over a Sept. 17 attack by the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers in the eastern Deir al-Zor province. Washington said that strike was carried out by mistake with the intent of hitting Islamic State.

Monday’s attack on the aid convoy, which the Syrian Red Crescent says killed the head of its local office and around 20 other people, brought furious international condemnation.

The United Nations suspended aid shipments. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon used his farewell speech to the General Assembly in New York to denounce the “cowards” behind it.

“Just when you think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower,” Ban said.

However, the United Nations, which initially described the attack as an air strike, rowed back from that characterization, saying it could not be certain what had happened.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday that two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes were in the skies above the aid convoy at the time it was struck late on Monday, citing U.S. intelligence that led them to conclude Russia was to blame.

Moscow says the convoy was not hit from the air and has implied rebels were to blame, saying only rescue workers affiliated to the opposition knew what had happened. Russia’s foreign ministry told reporters at the United Nations the U.S. administration “has no facts” to support its assertions.

Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the war, has been a focal point of the war this year as Assad and his allies have sought to encircle the insurgent-held east and cut opposition supply lines to Turkey.

Having blockaded eastern Aleppo, the government and its allies aim to clear insurgents from areas to the south and west, to take back territory including the main Damascus-Aleppo highway. Shi’ite militia from Iraq, Lebanon and Iran play a big role fighting on the government’s side.

But rebel groups still have a strong presence in the area which abuts the insurgent stronghold of Idlib province. The powerful group formerly known as the Nusra Front has played a big role in fighting against the government.

Long al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Nusra has changed its name and disavowed al Qaeda, but is still characterized by both the West and Moscow as a terrorist group excluded from the ceasefire. Other rebels say Russia and the Syrian government exploit this to justify broader attacks.

(Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

Aid for Syria stuck with rising violence undermining truce

Civil Defence members with blood on their shirts stand after double airstrikes on the rebel held Bab al-Nairab neighborhood of Aleppo.

By Lisa Barrington and Osman Orsal

BEIRUT/CILVEGOZU, Turkey (Reuters) – Aid for the divided Syrian city of Aleppo was stuck on the Turkish border on the fifth day of a fragile ceasefire on Friday with rival factions arguing over how the supplies are to be delivered and violence increasingly undermining the truce.

The provision of aid to what was Syria’s largest city before the war is a critical test of the ceasefire, brokered by the United States and Russia a week ago with the aim of reviving talks on ending the conflict.

Humanitarian access to Aleppo hinges on control of the main road into the besieged rebel-held part of the city, divided between the government and rebels who have been battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad for more than five years. The Castello Road has become a major frontline in the war.

Russia said the Syrian army had begun to withdraw from the road on Thursday, but insurgent groups in Aleppo said they had seen no such move and would not pull back from their own positions around the road until it did so.

“By today this morning nothing had happened on the Castello Road … There is nothing new in Aleppo,” Zakaria Malahifji, of the Aleppo-based rebel group Fastaqim, told Reuters by phone.

The Kremlin said it was using its influence to try to ensure the Syrian army fully implemented the ceasefire and that it hoped the United States would use its own influence with rebel groups too.

“In general, we can still state that the (ceasefire) process is moving forward, despite some setbacks,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

U.N. FRUSTRATION

Hundreds of protesters from the Shi’ite Muslim villages of Nubul and al Zahra – which lie in government-held territory – were meanwhile heading towards the Castello Road with the aim of blocking it and obstructing the passage of aid trucks, an organization that monitors the war said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they had come out to prevent aid entering rebel-held eastern Aleppo until there were guarantees that supplies would also be sent to the besieged Shi’ite villages of Kefraya and al-Foua which have been surrounded by insurgents since April 2015.

The United Nations, which says it asked the Syrian government for permission to reach all besieged areas, has voiced increasing frustration in recent days at the failure of the Syrian government to allow access.

“In order to actually initiate the actual movement of these convoys (to besieged areas) we need the facilitation letters. They have not come,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs, told a briefing in Geneva.

“It’s highly frustrating … and of course we urge the authorities and everyone with influence over those authorities to push for these letters to materialize as soon as possible.”

Two convoys of aid have been waiting since early on Tuesday in no-man’s land at the Turkish border for permission to travel into Syria. A U.N. spokesman said the first convoy of trucks was carrying flour for more than 150,000 people, while the second was carrying food rations for 35,000 people for a month.

About 300,000 people are thought to be living in eastern Aleppo, while more than one million live in the government-controlled western half of the city.

 

Smoke rises over a damaged site as Civil Defence members try to put out a fire after an airstrike on al-Jalaa street in the rebel held city of Idlib, Syria

Smoke rises over a damaged site as Civil Defence members try to put out a fire after an airstrike on al-Jalaa street in the rebel held city of Idlib, Syria. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

TRUCE VIOLATIONS

The government and rebels have accused each other of violating the ceasefire, although the U.S. State Department said on Thursday it was largely holding and that both Washington and Moscow believed it was worth continuing.

The United States and Russia have backed opposing sides in the war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, forced 11 million from their homes, and created the world’s worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

After three days which saw a significant decrease in violence and no deaths, the first civilians since the start of the truce were killed on Thursday.

Three more died and 13 were injured in air strikes in rebel-held Idlib province on Friday, the Observatory said. A number of shells were also fired by insurgents into besieged al-Foua and Kefraya.

A building belonging to the Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue organization also known as the “White Helmets” was also hit in overnight air strikes, the group and the Observatory said.

Violent clashes and shells hit areas east of the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday. Residents in the city center were woken up by a large explosion, a witness said, and shells fell on the eastern gate of Damascus’s central Old City area.

The Britain-based Observatory said the violence stemmed from clashes between insurgents and Syrian government forces and their allies in the Jobar district on the eastern outskirts of the capital amid a government effort to advance in the area.

The Syrian military said rebels had attacked military positions east of the city.

Washington hopes the ceasefire will pave the way to a resumption of political talks. But a similar agreement unraveled earlier this year, and Russia’s intervention a year ago in support of Assad has given it critical leverage over the diplomatic process.

The United States and Russia will brief United Nations Security Council members behind closed doors on Friday, diplomats said, on the deal the pair agreed to try and put Syria’s peace process back on track.

Russia is pushing for the U.N. Security Council to adopt a draft resolution next week endorsing the deal.

Assad, appears as uncompromising as ever. He vowed again this week to win back the entire country, which has been splintered into areas controlled by the state, a constellation of rebel factions, Islamic State jihadists, and Kurdish militia fighters.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Francis in Beirut, Tom Miles in Geneva, Dmitry Solovyov in Moscow and Michelle Nicols; Writing by Nick Tattersall, editing by Peter Millership)

Syria truce largely hold, aid preperations underway

Boys walk near a damaged building on the first day of Eid al-Adha celebrations in the rebel held Douma neighbourhood of Damascus

By Lisa Barrington

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A nationwide ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was mostly holding across Syria on Tuesday and efforts to deliver badly needed aid to besieged areas including the northern city of Aleppo got cautiously underway.

Syrian state media said armed groups had violated the truce in a number of locations in Aleppo city and in the west Homs countryside on at least seven occasions on Tuesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces had shelled near two villages in the south Aleppo countryside and a neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus.

But there were no reports of deaths or injuries.

The Russian military, which sent reconnaissance equipment to detect and suppress attempts at violations, said the ceasefire had largely been observed in Aleppo.

Around 20 trucks carrying aid crossed into northern Syria from the Turkish border town of Cilvegozu, some 40 km (25 miles) west of Aleppo, a Reuters witness said, although with security a concern it was not clear how far into Syria they would go. A Turkish official said they were mostly carrying food and flour.

The Syrian government said it would reject any aid deliveries to Aleppo not coordinated through itself and the United Nations, particularly from Turkey, Syrian state media reported.

The U.N. said its trucks had not yet entered Syria and that it was still awaiting confirmation that the ceasefire was holding before sending in its own convoy.

“We are waiting for this cessation of hostilities to actually deliver the assurances and the peace before trucks can start moving from Turkey. As I speak, that has not been the case,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in Geneva.

“We need to enter an environment where we are not in mortal danger as humanitarian organizations delivering aid,” he said.

The ceasefire is the second attempt this year by the United States and Russia to halt the Syrian war. Russia is a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.

Some air attacks and shelling were reported in the first hours of the truce on Monday evening, but that appeared to die down and the Observatory, which monitors the war, said it had not recorded a single civilian death from fighting in the 15 hours since the ceasefire came into effect at 7 p.m. (1600 GMT).

Turkey said on Monday that, in conjunction with the United Nations, it aimed to send more than 30 trucks loaded with food, children’s clothes and toys to besieged parts of Aleppo within hours of the truce taking effect.

The United Nations said on Friday the Syrian government had effectively stopped aid convoys this month and Aleppo was almost running out of fuel.

The head of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo expressed concern that planned deliveries would be conducted according to Russian wishes and would not meet the needs of an estimated 300,000 people living there.

Brita Hagi Hassan told Reuters the rebel-held part of the city, which has been fully encircled by pro-government forces for more than a week, was in dire need of fuel, flour, wheat, baby milk, and medicines.

The council wanted to a role in overseeing the deliveries, he added, rejecting any presence of government forces on the road expected to be used to make the deliveries.

“We need 60 tonnes of flour each day,” he said.

POSITION OF STRENGTH

More than 301,000 Syrians have been documented as killed since the start of the conflict in 2011, the Observatory said in its latest assessment on Tuesday, although it estimates the actual death toll at around 430,000, in line with the U.N.’s estimate. Some 11 million people have been made homeless in the world’s worst refugee crisis.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was monitoring the ceasefire very closely, a spokeswoman said, but she declined to comment on how it was being observed so far.

Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position after a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover from the war. It denied a Syrian claim that a warplane and drone were shot down.

The truce does not cover the jihadist groups Islamic State or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, a group formerly called the Nusra Front which was al Qaeda’s Syria branch until it changed its name in July. It initial aims include allowing humanitarian access and joint U.S.-Russian targeting of such groups.

The agreement comes at a time when Assad’s position on the battlefield is at its strongest since the earliest months of the war, thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.

The RIA news agency quoted Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday as saying Moscow and Tehran had no differences over the ceasefire deal.

Hours before the truce took effect, an emboldened Assad vowed to take back all of Syria. In a gesture loaded with symbolism, state television showed him visiting Daraya, a Damascus suburb long held by rebels but recaptured last month after fighters surrendered in the face of a crushing siege.

Fighting had raged on several key fronts before the truce, including Aleppo and the southern province of Quneitra on Monday, the first day of the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday.

The Observatory said at least 31 were killed by air strikes on rebel-held Idlib province and eastern Damascus, and by the bombardment of villages in the northern Homs countryside and rocket attacks in the city of Aleppo before the truce.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, Yesim Dikmen in Istanbul, Tom Perry in Beirut, Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Maria Kiselyova and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Orhan Coskun in Ankara; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Syrian military declares 72 hour truce across country

Children walk past the rubble of damaged buildings on Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in the rebel held Douma neighbourhood of

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian military has declared a 72-hour “regime of calm” covering all of Syria from 1 a.m. on Wednesday (1800 EDT Tuesday), a military source told Reuters, although fighting and air attacks have been reported since then.

The military high command said in a statement that “a regime of calm will be implemented across all territory of the Syrian Arab Republic for a period of 72 hours from 1 a.m. on July 6 until 2400 on July 8, 2016”.

The Syrian government uses the term “regime of calm” to denote a temporary ceasefire.

The truce covers the three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday celebrated by Muslims to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. There was no indication that it had been agreed with any of the myriad groups opposing the government.

Syrian rebel group Jaish al Islam said in a statement that, despite the announced truce, government and allied forces had attacked the town of Maydaa, in the Eastern Ghouta area east of Damascus. Maydaa had been held by Jaish al Islam, which is part of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) representing the opposition at international peace talks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that government and allied forces had taken almost complete control of Maydaa and that fighting continued. Syrian state media said the army and its allies had taken ground from “terrorists” in the area. The Syrian government describes all groups fighting against it as terrorists.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian conflict, also said there had been rebel and government shelling in areas around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, and air strikes had hit towns in the northern Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.

Syrian state media also reported army operations against Islamic State militants across the country on Wednesday.

A ceasefire brokered by foreign powers in February to facilitate talks to end the five-year civil war has mostly unraveled in areas where it took effect in the west of the country.

That truce was agreed with many opposition militias, but did not include the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front or Islamic State.

Since then, the Syrian army and the Russian military, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have announced a number of temporary local truces in areas of intense fighting, for example in the city of Aleppo or near the capital Damascus.

But air strikes and fighting have often continued in spite of the declarations.

(This version of the story recasts the headline)

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Hugh Lawson)