World leaders call for truce in Aleppo as regime continues advances

Confident. Hopeful. We’ll see where we are, ” Kerry told reporters Thursday morning before leaving the OSCE meeting.

The sides discussed issues of bilateral relations on the sidelines of the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Hamburg.

Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met earlier in the day in Germany, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Syria and Russian Federation have said they will not consider a cease-fire unless rebels leave Aleppo, Radio Free Europe reported.

The United States, along with Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain, called Wednesday for an immediate cease-fire in Aleppo and condemned Russian Federation for interfering with attempts to bring humanitarian aid to those civilians trapped in the Syrian city.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a potential US-Russia deal to allow Syrian rebels to leave Aleppo safely was still on the agenda.

Syria’s government ignored a rebel cease-fire proposal for Aleppo on Wednesday as its forces captured new neighbourhoods around the city centre and squeezed some 200,000 exhausted and frightened civilians into a shattered and rapidly shrinking opposition enclave.

Mr Lavrov said some 8,000 people would be taken out.

“If there is even one person remaining, then it is my duty to stay with them”, he said. Such approvals, however, do not always result in actual deliveries. Toner said although the USA and Russian Federation recognizes Nusrah as a terror group, Russian Federation is not hitting the group.

Overnight, Syrian soldiers helped residents evacuate newly recaptured areas near the Old City, with evacuees huddling into buses.

Assad said the chances of a cease-fire are “practically nonexistent” at this point. Turkey is a leading sponsor of the opposition.

Syrian army soldiers prepare for battle with rebels at the Ramouseh front line, east of Aleppo, Syria, Dec. 5, 2016. Remaining rebel-held districts were coming under heavy bombardment, an AFP correspondent in the area said.

More than 800 people have been killed and between 3000 and 3500 have been wounded in Syria’s besieged eastern Aleppo in the past 26 days. According to the Observatory, 369 civilians, including 45 children, have been killed in eastern Aleppo since November 15.

Syrian forces walk through the streets of the old city of Aleppo.

“When Aleppo is done, 90 percent of the Syrian crisis will be resolved”, said Mohammad Hassino, a 45-year-old businessman walking with his wife in the narrow alleys of the old quarter of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

ICRC said in a statement on Thursday that the evacuation was possible after fighting calmed down in that part of the city.

“The Russians want the fighters out and they (the Americans) are ready to coordinate over that”, said the Turkey-based official, citing indirect contacts with USA officials. The people had been trapped in a facility that was originally a home for the elderly and included mental health patients, elderly orphans, and patients with physical disabilities.

The agency quoting an unnamed police official says 64 were also injured Wednesday, including some in critical condition, after rockets fell on at least four different neighborhoods in government-held Aleppo.

But Assad told Al-Mayadeen that “the decision to liberate all of Syria is taken and Aleppo is part of it”.

But he added, “to be realistic, it doesn’t mean the end of the war”.

An opposition activist in Aleppo said insurgents had staved off the attacks on the latter two districts.

The Syrian government rejected the United Nations proposal early on, maintaining that any truce would only be used by the armed factions, which it considers to be terrorists, to regroup.

“The regime’s refusal to engage in a serious political process also highlights the unwillingness of both Russian Federation and Iran to work for a political solution despite their assurances to the contrary”, the statement said.