Syrian president receives phone call from Russia’s Putin

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Tuesday that Washington is considering a “Plan B” to deal with Syria if Damascus and Moscow are not serious about negotiating a political transition.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry says Kerry’s remarks “run counter to reality” and attempt to “conceal his country’s responsibility for the terrorist crimes that Syria has been subjected to”.

Faced with skepticism about the cessation plan, Kerry said that things in Syria could get uglier.

Speaking on reports that the U.S. seeks to include humanitarian aspects in the resolution, he said the text will focus on issues within the framework of resolution 2254 adopted in December that approved the Vienna deal on settling the crisis in Syria.

But HNC chief negotiator Mohamad Alloush said on Wednesday that the council had not yet decided whether to commit to the deal, underlining rebel doubts over a deal they fear will not prevent Russian air strikes against them.

Putin has seized on the cease-fire deal as a diplomatic victory for Russian Federation and one that places Russian Federation on the same superpower bargaining level as the United States, long a Kremlin goal.

The war has killed more than 250,000 people and left 4.5 million hard to reach with humanitarian aid, the United Nations says.

“The Syrian people will never accept the partition of the country”, Shaaban, political and media adviser to President Bashar Assad, said at an experts meeting of the Valdai club in Moscow. Instead, he has offered a “halt to combat operations”. “We expect those approvals to happen immediately”, he said. Chris Coons, D-Del. That approach is “far preferable to our deploying tens of thousands of American troops in an attempt to move the balance of the battlefield back against Assad”, he said.

Details of the implementation were still being worked out, he said: “I think the work in front of the task force over the next several days is to work out kind of standard operating procedures and working methods for the task force to implement the ceasefire”.

The last round in Geneva broke up earlier this month without progress after the Syrian government launched a Russian-backed offensive on the city of Aleppo. The militants also seized 12 surrounding hills, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Damascus, backed by ground forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, is making significant advances near Aleppo, which is split between rebel- and government-control.

The plan calls for a “cessation of hostilities” by midnight on Friday between the army and allied forces and the various militant groups fighting them.

“They are around Khanaser – it is under their sniper fire”, the source told the Reuters news agency.

“In order to guarantee the success of the truce, the Syrian government asserts its readiness to continue its coordination with the Russian side to determine the territories and armed groups that are included in the truce”, said the Syrian Foreign Ministry in a statement quoted by CBS News.

The main umbrella for Syrian opposition and rebel groups, the High Negotiations Committee, gave a conditional approval late Monday.