Kerry calls for no aircraft flying over key Syria aid routes

The US has said that Russian Federation bears responsibility for the attack on the convoy because they were the only two countries flying planes over the area at that time and Russian Federation had pledged to restrain Syria.

More than 300,000 people have been killed and half of Syria’s 22 million people have been uprooted since a crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad on pro-democracy protesters in 2011 sparked a civil war.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the strike. “That’s an eyewitness report – the place turned into hell, and fighter jets were in the sky”, he said.

The US and Russian Federation were both in attendance at the meeting.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss intelligence information publicly. A fifth medic died later of wounds incurred during the attack.

“How can people go sit at a table with a regime that bombs hospitals and drops chlorine gas again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and acts with impunity?” Yet following the convoy attack, the United Nations suspended overland aid operations in Syria.

Laerke, the United Nations humanitarian aid agency spokesman, acknowledged Wednesday that a full assessment had not been completed, but said the planned deliveries would take place now on a case-by-case basis.

Lavrov, whose country has helped the Syrian government shore up its position, said the US bore the biggest responsibility for peace by separating opposition forces from terrorists.

It was a sleepless night for many Aleppo residents, Agence France-Presse’s correspondent in the city said on Wednesday, with bombardment continuing until rain broke out over the city at dawn. The Observatory says the toll is likely to rise because rescue efforts are ongoing. Wednesday’s latest violence included an airstrike in the north that killed five medical staff, according to a relief organization.

Kerry said it was a moment of truth for the opposition, which he said must do more to distance itself from Al Nusra Front, long Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, which changed its name and disavowed Al Qaeda two months ago.

Kerry added that those who believe the crisis in Syria can not get any worse are “dead wrong”, and that while the cease-fire plan forged almost two weeks ago in Geneva between Russian Federation and the U.S.is imperfect, there has not been any alternative that is “remotely realistic that will lead to a better outcome”.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. He called the accidental USA -led coalition bombing Saturday of Syrian troops a “clear violation” of the cease-fire.

In a public session originally envisioned to enshrine Syria’s September 9 truce, world powers were left to rue the possibility of the conflict entering an even darker phase after a series of attacks on humanitarian workers.

“But, put it this way, when you look at what happened to the aid convoy, there are only two possible culprits, only two forces that are capable of having carried out that strike flying in that area – they are the Syrians and the Russians, and we have our doubts about the Syrian capability to fly at night”. The US is blaming either Russian Federation or its Syrian ally while Russian Federation is denying involvement. The convoy was carrying aid materials from the United Nations.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wants all aircraft over key humanitarian routes in northern Syria grounded in order to facilitate desperately need aid deliveries.

The UN General Assembly, which is now underway in NY, and the UN Security Council have focused this year on the humanitarian disaster in Syria and are working toward ending the country’s civil war, now in its sixth year. -Russian cease-fire deal, but seemed stuck on fundamental differences old and new: Who bears ultimate responsibility for the war and whose actions over the last days scuttled perhaps the best opportunity for peace?

Their face-to-face meeting in NY was their first since Mr Johnson was appointed, and came days after talks between Theresa May and Moscow over Russian president Vladimir Putin’s support for Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime.

The cease-fire was intended in part to allow humanitarian convoys to reach besieged and hard-to-reach areas throughout Syria.

This led to furious exchanges at the UN Security Council and precipitated a breakdown in an already fractious ceasefire negotiated in Geneva between Washington and Moscow.

A day after the U.S., Russian Federation and other powers sought to keep the week-old cease-fire alive, the same actors are debating the conflict in a public setting.

Only the Islamic State group and the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front are not covered by the ceasefire, but Russian Federation has long argued that other groups are fighting alongside those jihadists.

“The key priority is to separate the opposition forces from the terrorists”, Lavrov said.

USA officials told Reuters news agency that two Russian Sukhoi SU-24 warplanes had been detected in the skies above the convoy at the moment the attack happened. He told The Associated Press in Paris on Wednesday that the team was bombed while responding to an earlier airstrike targeting militants from the al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front.

Dozens of Syrian troops were killed in Saturday’s strike by the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State, which Washington said was a mistake. IS shot down a government aircraft on Sunday in the eastern Deir el-Zour province.

A Syrian monitoring group says a warplane has crashed northwest of the capital, Damascus, as Islamic State group militants claim they downed it. Syria’s rebels do not operate an air force.

The only success the United States has managed to achieve, Jaafari said, is to level “false accusations” about the “suffering of Syrians to demonize the Syrian government and its allies”. There was no immediate comment from the government.

An air strike hit relief trucks near the city of Aleppo on Monday, shattering a ceasefire.

Gabriel said he told Putin that Germany thought the Syrian army was involved in the attack.

Syrian state media reported that the city’s government-held west had come under rebel shelling, which killed two people.