Aleppo’s Old City captured by Assad regime following rebel retreat

Syrian government forces and their allies have advanced deeper into the shrinking rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo, seizing the Old City, amid no signs of progress on working out a deal to halt the violence.

Opposition fighters who refused to leave the area would be “eradicated”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks carried by Russian state news agency TASS. “This is the largest operation conducted for evacuation of the civilians until now”.

CNN crews on the ground in Aleppo could still hear mortar rounds going off despite the announcement.

Moscow said on Monday that Russian and US officials would meet this week to discuss a possible rebel withdrawal from Aleppo.

Russian Federation and the United States are in talks about a rebel withdrawal from the city, but so far opposition forces have vowed to stay put.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that the Russian government supports the U.S. initiative.

Lavrov said that he and Kerry had reached agreement to restart the Geneva talks on Saturday to determine “the ways and methods of a final settlement of the eastern Aleppo problem through the departure of all militants and those civilian residents, who will wish to do so, from there”, the Russian news agency Interfax reported from Hamburg.

The U.S. accused Russian Federation of stalling, after a resolution for a seven-day cease-fire in Aleppo was blocked by Russian Federation and China.

Assad not in favor of ceasefire.

The plan aims at allowing humanitarian aid into the shattered east of the city where regime forces are seizing control of rebel-held areas, and for sick or injured to be evacuated.

Russian Federation wants the talks with Washington scheduled to take place this week, for the withdrawal of rebel forces, to be concluded first before a truce can be introduced but the rebels have rejected calls to evacuate Aleppo.

The joint statement pointed the finger at both Moscow and Tehran for frustrating efforts to find a peaceful end to the brutal civil war.

Assad said a rebel loss in Aleppo “will mean the transformation of the course of the war across Syria” and would leave opposition factions and their backers with “no cards left to play”.

“It is a significant landmark towards the end of the battle, but the war in Syria will not end until terrorism is eliminated”.

He was speaking after a fierce three-week offensive in which government forces seized about 80% of east Aleppo, a stronghold for rebel groups since 2012.

It rules out the evacuation of civilians to neighboring Idlib province, where many civilians and surrendering rebels have taken refuge after leaving territory recaptured by the government elsewhere in the country.

In a joint statement Wednesday, the leaders of Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and the US called for an immediate cease-fire in the Syrian city of Aleppo and said they were “ready to consider additional restrictive measures against individuals and entities that act for or on behalf of the Syrian regime”.

“It is a disgrace that we have been unable to establish humanitarian corridors, but we must continue to fight for it”, the German chancellor said.

“We have been trying to find a way to get to the negotiating table. but Assad has never shown any willingness”, Kerry said at a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation foreign ministers in Brussels.

Assad’s forces, backed by foreign fighters from Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, were continuing to advance on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.