Syria truce could begin ‘within days’ — Kerry

AMMAN — US Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday announced reaching a “provisional agreement” to cease fire in Syria, following a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov on Sunday morning.

The announcement came during a joint press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Judeh in Amman, where Kerry added that he spoke with Lavrov to discuss terms of ceasefire without further elaboration on these terms.

However, he noted that he hopes that US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would talk soon and after that the implementation would begin.

“I believe we have reached a provisional agreement in principle on the terms of the cessation of hostilities that could begin in the coming days,” Kerry announced.

He explained that the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) last week took a very important and tangible step forward in this regard.

“We established a task force for the cessation of hostilities” under the auspices of the UN and co-chaired by the US and Russia.

“Over the past days, our teams in Geneva have been working intensively to develop modalities for the cessation of hostilities,” the secretary of state said, adding that “there will be consultations with other members of the ISSG and the Syrian opposition on the provisional understanding that has been reached”.

Syria without Assad

Meanwhile, the visiting minister stressed that nothing will do more to make the fight against Daesh effective than to put in place a political transition, that finds a government in Syria responsive to the desperate needs of the Syrian people.

That is a government, he stressed, that cannot have Bashar Assad as its head and “that is why we have said again and again that with Assad, this war cannot and will not end”.

The path to be, he noted, is the path to isolating, degrading and destroying Daesh, “giving the people of Syria a real choice to their future is actually right in front of us now”.

“Now we have this moment of opportunity, and the US is doing everything in our power to try to fulfil this moment of opportunity… today the coalition has also engaged very directly in fighting against Daesh, and we are determined that we will win this fight,” he stressed.

Humanitarian assistance to Syria

The state secretary also noted that there was an agreement at the Munich meeting to accelerate and expand access to humanitarian supplies inside Syria, “and I can tell you that today the process is starting to work”.

Earlier this week, limited humanitarian aid entered besieged suburbs in Damascus for the first time in quite a while and 114 trucks in recent days have reached five areas that were under the siege. 

For the ISSG’s humanitarian task force more areas will now receive help in the coming days and weeks. “This access, specifically called for in UN resolution 2254; we intend to see this aid continues to flow.”

The Syrian regime has a fundamental humanitarian and global responsibility and so the other parties to the conflict, Kerry said, adding that facilitating humanitarian access to populations in desperate need now or in any time “is a fundamental responsibility”.

He said the use of food as an instrument and weapon of war is “a war crime, and we put the regime on notice today that we will watch closely for the full compliance with this international objective” that has been ratified within the UN Security Council by unanimous vote.

“I have been involved in the discussions around this war for three-and-a-half years now and I have talked to every party in one way or another, and I can tell you that no tactic such as those being employed today will win this war, they will only create more refugees, more victims”.

This prolonged conflict will strengthen Daesh, and it will compel tens of thousands of more Syrians to flee the conflict and will increase the problem of displaced persons and refugees,” he concluded.