Russian Federation says Syria ceasefire process underway despite US sabotage attempts

“It’s a fragile deal”, said Rana, a 54-year old pharmacist.

“Violations will happen from other parties and not from the Syrian state’s side”, Haidar told The Associated Press after talks in Damascus with Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

To achieve a reduction in violence that would allow aid operations across the country and bring the Syrian government and the opposition back to the negotiating table in Geneva for a U.N.-facilitated political transition process.

The Islamic State group has captured an important town in northern Syria, cutting supply lines for government forces between the northern city of Aleppo and central and western Syria.

“If the identification of who is from which opposition group in the region will be carried out by Russian Federation, the Assad regime and structures like the YPG, then that is a grave situation”, Erdogan said.

SANA said the army took Khanaser, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) southeast of Aleppo city, after three days of heavy battles and that intense fighting was still underway to reopen the road.

Ahmad Fawzi says the deliveries to Moadamiyeh and Kfar Batna will follow other deliveries of aid to besieged areas of Syria in recent weeks.

The agreement announced by the USA and Russian Federation earlier in the week is for a cessation of hostilities to begin on midnight Friday local time. The agreement does not apply to the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, or the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front terrorist groups.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday called the ceasefire agreement “a real step” toward ending five years of bloodshed in Syria, Moscow and Washington will establish a hotline and, if necessary, a working group to exchange information after the cessation of hostilities has gone into effect, he said.

Putin, whose air force has been conducting a bombing campaign to support Assad’s troops on the ground since late September, on Monday pledged to do “whatever is necessary” to get Damascus to uphold the deal after sealing the agreement with US President Barack Obama.

Numan Kurtulmus told journalists on Tuesday: “We hope that the PYD will not attack Turkey after Saturday”.

“I talked this morning with Foreign Minister Lavrov and we have a team that will be meeting in the next day or so – the task force for the ceasefire, cessation of hostilities”, he said. The Syrian opposition has agreed to abide by the truce but expressed major concerns about what it said were ambiguities and the lack of clear mechanism to implement the agreement.

“If a humanitarian solution can’t be found to the problem in Syria and peace doesn’t prevail to everyone’s satisfaction, then the proxy war will end, with these countries directly becoming sides to the war”, he said in a speech in Istanbul.

“Primary attention was focused on the Syrian issues, in particular the discussion of initiatives and proposals laid out in the Joint Statement of Russian Federation and the United States on the cessation of hostilities in Syria”, the Kremlin said in reference to Putin’s call with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.