Russia says it will offer new ideas to restart Syria talks

A diplomatic row has broken out at the UN in NY where the French ambassador to the United Nations slammed the Syrian government and its allies for scuppering the Geneva peace talks.

A Red Cross spokesman told the French news agency AFP on Saturday that aid delivery access to Aleppo was “difficult”.

Several towns and cities, including Syria’s second-largest city of Aleppo, are now under a government siege that has left hundreds of thousands of civilians deprived of humanitarian assistance.

Iran, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, acknowledges that Iranian officers are providing an advisory role in Syria, but denies sending combat troops.

She said another 5,000 to 10,000 displaced people had gathered at Azaz, a northwestern Syrian city close to the border with Turkey.

Predominantly Turkmen areas of northwestern Syria have been under attack by regime forces – backed by Russian air power – since November of a year ago.

OCHA spokeswoman Linda Tom said the fighting had disrupted major aid supply routes from the Turkish border.

Around 20,000 Syrians have reached the border with Turkey seeking refuge after forces aligned with the Syrian government, backed by Russian airstrikes, intensified their assault on the city of Aleppo Friday.

The governor of Turkey’s Kilis border province, Suelyman Tapsiz, said 35,000 refugees were being accommodated and given food at camps on the Syrian side.

The border gate between Syria and Turkey was closed on Friday and no refugee has been admitted, prompting the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International to call on Turkey to allow those who have massed at the border to cross in.

Once Syria’s thriving commercial center, Aleppo has been divided since 2012 between government- and rebel-controlled districts.

Mr Erdogan said Russian Federation and the Syrian government were together responsible for 400,000 deaths in Syria.

Insurgents still control a narrow corridor west of the city they can use for small groups of fighters to enter and exit, but it cannot be used to ferry in large amounts of supplies.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has accused Russian Federation of “undermining” Syrian peace efforts through its strikes, which it says are mainly aimed at opposition groups.

Jens Stoltenberg added that increased Russian air force activity in Syria was also leading to more violations of Turkish airspace.

Officials at the government’s crisis management agency said Friday it was not clear when Turkey would open the border to allow the group in and start processing them.

Al-Moallem said conventional wisdom and logic would suggest the idea of Saudi troops in Syria is far-fetched, but that “with the insane Saudi leadership nothing is far-fetched”. The Russian airplanes are flying five or six planes together. Amateur video showed thousands, including women and children, running with their belongings toward the frontier.

Syrian soldiers, fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, and local and foreign militiamen seized Ataman, just two kilometres (1.3 miles) from Daraa, capital of the province of the same name, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Approximately 2.5 million Syrians are now living in Turkey. The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside the country, said government troops and allied militias advanced under cover of airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardment.