UN to announce new round of Syria talks – envoy

The White House has been trying to keep the borders and bones of the non-sectarian Syrian state in place while militarily countering efforts of extremist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

United Nations aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the Security Council that the plane dropped 21 tonnes of humanitarian items on a government-held part of Deir al-Zour.

The U.N. also said it will name a date on Friday for Syria’s warring parties to return to the negotiating table for a second round of talks.

The mortars that hit the Mezzeh neighbourhood and Ommayad Square in Damascus come after two days of intensive aerial bombing of rebel-held suburbs, rebels and monitors Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“We, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), give great importance to the process of cessation of hostilities announced by the United States and Russian Federation and we will respect it, while retaining the right to retaliate… if we are attacked”, the statement said.

“There were two problems: pallets were drifting in with their parachutes, so that some missed targets and others of the pallets (ie in the case of the other pallets) the parachutes did not open and the food were (was) destroyed”, said the UN’s Humanitarian Advisor for Syria, Jan Egeland. “We expect those approvals to happen immediately”, he said. He says “these are the first of what we hope will be a series of deliveries to people who have not been reached for a long time”.

Khanaser lies along the government’s only access route to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once commercial center.

A senior US official told CBS News on Wednesday that while the partitioning of Syria is not in any way a so-called Plan B, other options being considered include more sanctions and possible “military-like” measures that would make it harder for the regime and its allies to continue their assault on civilians and U.S.-backed rebels.

“Ankara is the only place that decides actions regarding Turkey’s security”, he said.

Wednesday’s airdrop was done at a high altitude for such an operation, as the WFP stressed in its comments to IRIN: “The aircraft crew is highly experienced and have done numerous airdrops before but this was their first high altitude airdrop in Syria (at a height of 7,000 metres) and this operation is not without risk”.

The Syrian government says that it accepts a proposed truce in the country, adding that operations will continue against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.

The official Syrian announcement comes a day after the United States and Russian Federation agreed on a new cease-fire for Syria that will take effect Saturday.

The truce, proposed by Russian Federation and U.S.is to go into effect at midnight local time on Friday.

He says however that the opposition wants to stop the bloodshed and would abide by the truce.