US, Russia work to hold together fragile Syria ceasefire

US secretary of state John Kerry, right, arriving at the French foreign ministry for a meeting about the Syrian conflict in Paris, France on May 9, 2016. Philippe Lopez/Reuters

MOSCOW // Russia and the United States on Monday agreed to step up efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict and extend a truce across the whole country.

Both countries called on Syria’s government and opposition groups to restrain themselves even as a five-day ceasefire in the northern city of Aleppo was set to expire.

The chief architects of the fragile truce, Moscow and Washington said in a joint statement they were still committed to resuming peace talks to end Syria’s civil war, despite unmitigated differences over a role for Syrian president Bashar Assad in a future government.

Russia, Mr Assad’s close ally, said it would work with the Syrian government to minimise flights over civilian areas where opposition groups and rights activists have claimed that Syria’s military has violated the ceasefire.

The display of unity came as leaders of nations supporting the western-backed opposition coalition gathered in Paris to meet with the coalition’s head, Riad Hijab, in a bid to keep the truce alive and relaunch faltering peace talks.

US secretary of state John Kerry was attending the meeting alongside representatives of Britain, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey and the European Union. The US and Russia also said they are also committed to developing a “shared understanding” of where ISIL and the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat Al Nusra hold territory. The groups are excluded from the ceasefire, meaning continuing Syrian and Russian strikes against them do not technically breach the agreement. Yet in many places those groups are fighting alongside western-backed rebels, leading to accusations of violations that allowed the ceasefire to slowly unravel.

The US and Russia have been working to put the truce back together, and in particular to extend it to areas where heavy fighting has broken out, including Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Aleppo city is one of the biggest strategic prizes in a war now in its sixth year, and has been divided into government and rebel-held zones through much of the conflict.

A five-day ceasefire there expired just after midnight, but the US and Russia said they were working to “improve and sustain” the broader truce.

Yet in a reminder of the ongoing violence, there were reports of multiple air raids on a rebel-held area and shelling of government-controlled parts of Aleppo on Monday, opposition monitoring groups said.

Warplanes struck the town of Khan Touman, southwest of Aleppo, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels also fought government forces east of Damascus, and jets struck the rebel-held towns of Maarat Al Numan and Idlib.

Al Manar, the television channel of Damascus’s Lebanese ally Hizbollah, said on Monday troops had destroyed a tank belonging to insurgents and killed some of its occupants.

On the eastern edge of Damascus, government forces and their allies shelled rebel-held areas and clashed with insurgents in the area, both the Observatory and the rebel force Jaish Al Islam said. Three people were killed and 13 wounded in air strikes on Idlib, it said.

Saudi Arabia condemned air strikes on a camp for displaced Syrians west of Aleppo last week which killed at least 28 people, saying it was part of “the genocide committed by Bashar Al Assad’s forces against civilians in Syria”.

A Saudi cabinet statement on Monday said the strikes on the camp, alongside the prevention of humanitarian aid deliveries to Syrians, constituted war crimes. Damascus has denied targeting the camp or obstructing aid deliveries.

While in Paris, Mr Kerry met with Saudi foreign minister Adel Al Jubeir, a US ally eager to help Syria’s opposition by bolstering their military capability. The state department said Mr Kerry and Mr Al Jubeir “stressed the importance of all sides fully respecting the cessation of hostilities” and also consulted on the US-led fight against ISIL.

Separately, a tentative deal has been reached to end a strike in a Syrian prison by nearly 800 mostly political detainees that would eventually lead to the pardon and release of those held without charges, rights groups and activists said on Monday.

They said the deal brokered late on Sunday would end a mutiny in the Hama prison in central Syria that started last week when political detainees revolted after five inmates were to be taken to the notorious Sadnaya prison for the execution of death sentences passed by an extra-judicial military tribunal.

* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters