Syria’s Assad assures Putin in phone call on truce details

The United States and Russian Federation announced on Monday that they have agreed to terms of a partial cease-fire in Syria, a deal that will depend on their ability to cooperate amid deep mutual suspicion and test their willingness and ability to dictate terms to their allies on the ground.

While accepting the proposed truce, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said its operations will continue against IS, the Nusra Front and “other terrorist groups”.

Turkey says the YPG is a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, and has repeatedly shelled Kurdish militia positions inside Syria.

“Unlike Russia’s obscured hand in Ukraine, its actions in Syria are being played out in daily headlines that report on Russia’s indiscriminate bombing and its support of the Syrian regime in areas where moderate forces are aiming to get out from under the rule of the Assad regime”, Clapper said.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would soon know if the plan would take hold.

“This is a moment of opportunity and we are hopeful that all the parties will capitalize on it”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters as he revealed the call between the two leaders.

The UN said it had carried out its first humanitarian airdrop to civilians on Wednesday, with 21 tonnes of assistance delivered to residents of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, where regime-held areas are besieged by IS.

More than 260,000 people have died in Syria’s conflict, which began in March 2011 with anti-government protests but has since imploded into a multi-sided proxy war.

This makes clear Kerry’s deal with Russian foreign minister Lavrov is no hudna, but an attempt to stop the war in Syria.

But HNC chief negotiator Mohamad Alloush said on Wednesday that the council had not yet decided whether to commit to the agreement, underlining rebel doubts over a deal they fear will not prevent Russian air strikes against them.

On February 12, Kerry announced that world powers meeting in Munich, Germany, had agreed on a target date for a cessation of hostilities in Syria a week later.

“I don’t think Russian Federation believes that anything is going to happen”.

The Syrian government “and all forces supporting or associated” with it must “cease attacks with any weapons, including aerial bombardments by the Air Force of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation, against the armed opposition groups” participating in the deal. IS seized Khanaser and surrounding hills on Tuesday, cutting the government’s main land route to the city.

He says however that the opposition wants to stop the bloodshed and would abide by the truce.

He quipped that if fighting IS was the only criteria, then the West should cooperate the Al-Nusra front which often battles the even more extremist IS jihadists.

Konashenkov said in a statement that the center has been created in line with a U.S.-Russian agreement on a cease-fire set to take effect Saturday.

But the truce agreement, clinched Monday, does not apply to militants such as the Islamic State group and Al-Nusra Front, which analysts said could be a major hurdle to enforcing it on Syria’s complex battlefield.

Alloush said that the opposition bloc, known as the High Negotiations Committee, of which he is a member, would give the final answer.

Turkey, a major sponsor of the insurgency against Assad, said it welcomed plans for the halt to fighting but was not optimistic about a positive outcome to talks on a political transition.