German leader renews call for Syria no-fly zone

In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide “cessation of hostilities” in Syria was announced. Russian Federation has said that it will continue to strike extremists in Syria despite a planned truce.

Trucks with potentially life-saving food and medicine rolled to several besieged Syrian towns Wednesday, in a critical early test of whether combatants in the country’s five-year civil war will hold to a deal to allow critical aid to starving civilians.

A medical team would enter Kefraya and al-Foua, the spokesman said.

Thirdly, the two nations’ threat for further military involvements in Syrian was a countermeasure against the United States, whose promotion of ceasefire agreement in Syria has undoubtedly poured cold water on those eying more of its military endorsement for the Syrian rebels, said Tang Zhichao, head of Middle East research of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Madaya and Zabadani, in Damascus province, are both besieged by Syrian regime forces.

Egeland said the just concluded mission to five besieged areas included 114 trucks and delivered supplies to an estimated 80,000 people. “I think the Syrian people want to see hard evidence that these conferences serve a goal”.

In Syria, U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said he hoped food and other supplies would make it through Wednesday.

“Tomorrow we test this”, he said after meeting with Syria’s foreign minister.

A Syrian foreign ministry source rejected talk of a test.

Although the global forces differ on the proposal, potential peace talks in the wider conflict could get underway later this week. “Because whatever the capabilities of the Syrian army, it was the effective operations of Russian air forces that allowed them to push their opponents back from Damascus”. But there has been no let up in violence, with airstrikes on two hospitals this week killing dozens.

“It’s important that the Syrian government has officially declared that it would provide access to seven besieged cities”, Gatilov said, according to Interfax.

Turkey has been shelling Kurdish Syrian forces since Saturday, saying it has been responding to provocations.

Ankara has shelled a Kurdish-led militia which it says is allied with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency on its soil for decades.

“We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does”.

Analysts warned that it is highly likely that Russian Federation will launch a head-on confrontation with Turkey and Saudi Arabia if the two nations decide to send ground troops into Syria.

On Wednesday Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan told A Haber television Ankara wanted to create a 10-kilometre (six-mile) “safe line” inside Syria that would include the flashpoint town of Azaz near the border. “Maybe it’s even wishful thinking, because if you look into the technical details of a no-fly zone like we’ve seen in Libya, it’s quite complicated”.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday also reiterated her call for a no-fly zone to protect civilians saying the humanitarian situation in Syria was “intolerable”.