The Syrian army has announced launch of an offensive to retake rebel-held districts of Aleppo city, just as international powers with a stake in Syria’s civil war failed to revive a collapsed ceasefire during diplomatic talks in New York.
The announcement by the Syrian defence ministry last night followed several hours of intense air strikes that left parts of Aleppo in flames, according to a monitor and opposition activists. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday that the most intense strikes in months had triggered massive fires in rebel-held Aleppo neighbourhoods, killing at least seven people.
Yesterday, a high-level international meeting in New York on the crisis in Syria broke up without agreement on a way to revive a collapsed US and Russian-brokered truce. Speaking on yesterday after a meeting of the 23-nation International Syria Support Group, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington and Moscow cannot continue on the same path any longer.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, described the New York meeting as long, painful and disappointing, but added that he wanted to believe that Russia and the US were serious about brokering peace.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov intend to meet again today to discuss a cessation of hostilities in Syria. Kerry said at a press briefing in New York yesterday that the US have exchanged ideas with the Russia and plan to consult them with respect to those ideas.