Russia’s Syrian targets must change: Kerry

The bombardments have forced at least 50,000 people to flee, left the opposition virtually encircled and killed an estimated 500 people since they began on February 1 – the latest hellish twist in a war that has claimed more than a quarter-million lives.

“To date, the vast majority of Russia’s attacks have been against legitimate opposition groups”, Kerry said of Moscow’s air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Other analysts said it was significant that Washington and Moscow had been able to strike a deal at all.

The 17 countries agreed “to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities to begin in a target of one week’s time”, said US Secretary of State John Kerry after extended talks co-hosted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Still, officials acknowledged from the start that the test would be turning commitments on paper into reality on the ground – and it wasn’t clear whether deep differences regarding the truce and which groups would be eligible for it could be overcome.

This back-and-forth over Syria among outside powers is hardly new.

The test, he said, is what happens on the ground in the coming days. “But we can’t say how the situation will develop”, Binkert told The EU Observer.

“We need to have peace, we need to have negotiations, and for that, we need to stop bombings against civilians”, Valls said during his speech in Munich.

Some experts were even more pessimistic.

Assad’s comments came just hours before the global and regional powers reached a deal in the German city of Munich.

If its forces retake Aleppo and seal the Turkish border, Damascus would deal a crushing blow to the insurgents who were on the march until Russian Federation intervened last September, shoring up Assad’s rule and paving the way to the current advances.

Russia, which is co-leading the global agreement with the US, said it would continue its airstrikes, and Syrian government planes dropped leaflets urging rebels to surrender because “the belt is narrowing around you”.

“It’s unclear what’s going to happen on the battlefield before the ceasefire”, Tabler said.

“Yes, it is a political process, yes, there are military issues, but there are also humanitarian deliveries”.

He added that Ukraine had responsibilities to respect the Minsk agreement as well. Next month, Syria’s civil war will reach the end of its fifth year, and its consequences continue to reach new and disastrous levels. They were not part of the Munich agreement and must now decide whether to abide by what was approved there.

Opposition groups gave a cautious welcome, but said there must be differences on the ground before they could work towards a permanent peace deal in Geneva.

Poroshenko blasted Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Syria and said they are “a demonstration that we live in a completely different universe with Russian Federation”.

ISSG members will also work with the Syrian parties to ensure the immediate approval of more than a hundred pending United Nations access requests. “And the two tracks are separate from each other”. The Munich agreement doesn’t stop Russian Federation – or the United States, for that matter – from attacking Nusra positions.

In Syria, residents of the areas of northern Aleppo have born the brunt of the recent bombing campaign.

If the cessation of hostilities does manage to take hold elsewhere, Landis of the University of Oklahoma said it will likely be eggshell fragile because so many groups are involved in the fighting. “They’ve had no input into this”.