The leader of the opposition faction “ Batkivshchyna” in the Ukrainian Parliament Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that he had rejected the proposal of the Ukrainian President to become the country’s PM. Speaking on the Independence Square in Kiev Sunday, he said that ,
According to him, it is a joint decision of all opposition leaders and the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The Ukrainian opposition has no plans to hold talks on the constitutional reform in the cabinet of the Verkhovnaya Rada (Parliament) speaker Vladimir Rybak and is demanding that voting on the relevant resolution draft be held Tuesday, Yatsenyuk added.He also said that on Tuesday the Ukrainian Parliament was due to put to the vote the resolution on the return of the 2004 Constitution.
The former Constitution provided for the parliamentary-presidential form of rule in the country.
UN nuclear experts tackle Iran on arms allegations Tehran (AFP) Feb 08, 2014 – Iran said talks Saturday with the UN atomic watchdog over allegations of Tehran’s past weapons work and additional safeguards were constructive and have been extended for another day.The five-hour-long meeting came as the Islamic republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanded tolerance from critics of President Hassan Rouhani ahead of fresh talks with world powers.Negotiations between Iran and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are building on a framework deal agreed in November that requires Tehran to take six practical steps by Tuesday.Chief inspector Tero Varjoranta and four experts are assessing the implementation of those measures, Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said.
The official IRNA news agency quoted Kamalvandi as saying that the talks were “good, constructive and are progressing”.
He said both side had agreed to continue the talks on Sunday, which are expected to include long-standing allegations of “possible military dimensions” to Iran’s past nuclear activities.
IAEA director general Yukiya Amano told AFP last month that time was now ripe to ask the “more difficult” questions.
How long this takes “very much depends on Iran. It can be quick or it can be long. It really depends on their cooperation,” Amano said.
Another issue to be discussed is access to the Parchin military facility, suspected of having been used for research pertaining to weapons development prior to 2003, and possibly since, according to the IAEA.
The November deal, struck after two years of on-off talks, was separate from a landmark agreement reached with world powers the same month that has placed temporary curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities.
Implementation of the IAEA deal began in December, when inspectors visited Arak, where the small unfinished heavy water reactor has been hit by delays.
The site is of international concern because Iran could theoretically extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel if it also builds a reprocessing facility.
Iran says it will continue work there but its atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said this week the reactor could be modified to produce less plutonium to “allay the worries.”
The second step was to visit the Gachin uranium mine, which took place in late January.
Also required were information on future research reactors, identifying sites of new nuclear power plants, and clarification on Iranian statements regarding additional enrichment facilities and laser enrichment technology.
All six measures have been implemented.
Iran agreed Sunday to clarify to the UN atomic agency its need for detonators used in nuclear devices, as part of a probe into allegations of its past weapons work.
The move is part of seven new steps agreed between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency to increase transparency over Tehran’s controversial nuclear drive.
And it appears to be the first time in years Iran has agreed to tackle IAEA suspicions that its nuclear work prior to 2003 had “possible military dimensions”.
The development comes with Iran set to resume nuclear talks with world powers later this month, after an initial accord in November imposed curbs on its uranium enrichment to allay concerns that it seeks to acquire atomic weapons.
Capping two-days of talks in Tehran with Iranian officials, the IAEA said Iran agreed to provide “information and explanations for the agency to assess Iran’s stated need or application for the development of Exploding Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators”.
According to the IAEA, Iran told the agency in 2008 that it had developed EBWs for “civilian and conventional military applications” but has yet to explain its “need or application for such detonators”.
Such fast, high-precision detonators could be used in some civilian applications but are mostly known for triggering a nuclear chain reaction. The IAEA believes they form “an integral part of a programme to develop an implosion type nuclear device.”
Mark Hibbs, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the detonators are “fine wires… designed to perform with exceeding precision and reliability. Without that dependability, the detonations would fail.”
Citing an unnamed Iranian nuclear official, the ISNA news agency said Tehran would “provide information beyond what it had already provided to the agency” on the EBWs.
It did not elaborate.
Earlier, Iran’s envoy to the Vienna-based IAEA, Reza Najafi, said “seven more practical steps” had been agreed between the two sides in a deal that would be implemented by May 15.
Six other steps were agreed under a framework deal struck on November 11.
In the latest agreement, the IAEA will also have “managed access” to the Saghand uranium mine and the Ardakan yellowcake facility where an impure form of uranium oxide is prepared to be fed into centrifuges for enrichment.
Officially unveiled in April 2013, the plant in Ardakan receives raw material from Saghand, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) away. It can reportedly produce up to 60 tonnes of yellowcake annually.
Arak reactor in spotlight
Iran also agreed to submit updated design information and finalise a safeguards mechanism for the so-called heavy water reactor under construction in Arak.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Muqdad, said on Friday that Damascus will take part in a second round of peace talks in Geneva due to start on February 10.
“It has been decided that the delegation of the Syrian republic will take part in the second round of negotiations in Geneva,” state news agency SANA quoted Muqdad as saying.
“The Syrian delegation wishes to pursue the efforts it deployed during the first round in Geneva, and insists that the discussions focus on all clauses in the Geneva I communique, beginning with the first clause,” he said.
Ten days of talks in Switzerland last month between government and opposition delegations yielded no tangible results, and Damascus had said it was unsure whether it would return to the negotiating table.
Despite persistent pressure from UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and cosponsors Russia and the United States, the two sides failed to agree on a single point.
America’s frustration with Europe’s response to the political crisis in Ukraine burst into the open on Thursday after a senior US official was apparently caught on tape saying “f— the EU”.
Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, used the undiplomatic language in a phone conversation with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, which was posted online by an unknown source.
The pair are overheard discussing a possible deal between President Viktor Yanukovych and three opposition leaders to end the occupation of central Kiev by tens of thousands of protesters.
Ms Nuland relays the news that the United Nations has agreed to send an envoy to mediate between the rivals, a decision that she welcomes as necessary to “help glue this thing”.
Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovich (L) greets US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland
“And you know,” adds Ms Nuland, “f— the EU.”
”Exactly,” agrees the ambassador, Mr Pyatt. “And I think we got to do something to make it stick together, because you can be sure that if it does start to gain altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to torpedo it.”
Victoria Nuland, right, meeting the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in Kiev. Photograph: Markiv Mykhailo/Itar-Tass Photo/Corbis
America’s new top diplomat for Europe seems to have been caught being decidedly undiplomatic about her EU allies in a phone call apparently intercepted and leaked by Russia.
“Fuck the EU,” Victoria Nuland apparently says in a recent phone call with the US ambassador to Kiev, Geoff Pyatt, as they discuss the next moves to try to resolve the crisis in Ukraine amid weeks of pro-democracy protests which have rocked the country. The call appears to have been intercepted and released on YouTube, accompanied by Russian captions of the private and candid conversation.
Although the US state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, White House spokesman Jay Carney alleged that because it had been “tweeted out by the Russian government, it says something about Russia’s role”.
It was impossible to immediately verify the undated post, although the woman speaking sounds like Nuland, who served as the state department’s spokeswoman before becoming assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs last year.
Nuland and Pyatt appear to discuss the upheavals in Ukraine, and President Viktor Yanukovych’s offer last month to make opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk the new prime minister and Vitali Klitschko deputy prime minister. Both men turned the offer down.
Nuland, who in December went to Independence Square in Kiev in a sign of support for the demonstrators, adds that she has also been told that the UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, is about to appoint a former Dutch ambassador to Kiev, Robert Serry, as his representative to Ukraine.
Bugged US diplomats conversation: Moscow relishes in Washington’s embarrassment
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) — It was a conversation not meant for public consumption: two senior U.S. diplomats discussing the political crisis in Ukraine in strikingly frank language.
But within days, the bugged phone call landed on YouTube and was avidly tweeted by Russian officials, who cited it as proof of Western meddling in Ukrainian affairs.
The Russians denied they had any role in bugging the conversation, but they clearly relished in the embarrassment of the U.S. at a time when the ties between the two countries have been strained by a number of disputes, including Syria and most recently, Ukraine.
A look at recent attempts by Russia to jeer at the U.S.
DIPLOMAT IN BLOND WIG
Last May, Russian counterintelligence agents ambushed Ryan Fogle, a 29-year-old U.S. diplomat who they said was trying to recruit a Russian officer. They said he was caught red handed with a recruitment letter, two wigs, sunglasses, a compass and a wad of cash. The spy toolkit that seemed to come straight from a movie became the subject of mockery on Russian state TV for weeks.
SNOWDEN AFFAIR
By harboring NSA leaker Edward Snowden and refusing U.S. demands to extradite him, Russia has dealt a blow to the United States. Though President Vladimir Putin denied that Russian security agencies were controlling Snowden, many security analysts were skeptical, saying it was inconceivable the Russians wouldn’t have rummaged through a trove of secrets in his possession.
The Snowden affair and the spotlight it has shone on U.S. eavesdropping activities also offered the Kremlin an opportunity to turn the tables following criticism of Russia’s rights record.
Assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, apologises to EU counterparts for ‘undiplomatic language’
LAST UPDATED AT 10:39 ON Fri 7 Feb 2014
THE United States has issued a humiliating apology after a senior official was heard to say “f*** the EU” in an apparently leaked private phone conversation with the US ambassador to Ukraine.
The alleged phone call between Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state, and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was released on YouTube on Thursday. The candid chat is thought to have been conducted on an unencrypted line, which led to its interception.
Moscow has accused the US of meddling in the internal affairs of the sovereign former-Soviet state, which Russia hopes to keep within its economic orbit, Reuters reports. The Kremlin went so far as to suggest that the conversation was evidence that the US may be attempting to foment a coup within Ukraine.
During the Munich meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry, the American side suggested creating an additional mechanism to promote the Syrian settlement, the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper writes in its Tuesday edition.
The newspaper quotes a Russian diplomatic source as saying that the case in point is a regional format that should expand the number of participants in the Geneva-2 peace conference on Syria.
“The Americans have proposed to include five participants into a parallel track: Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran,” the report says.
Russia and the US play a leading role in the Syrian settlement. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the main sponsors of opponents of the regime, while Iran is its key ally.
“The Russian side has on the whole welcomed the proposal. Last year, Moscow itself initiated a regional negotiation format in addition to inter-Syrian dialogue, but back then the United States deemed it inexpedient. Now the US side has come up with the same idea,” Kommersant reports.
The newspaper links a change in Washington’s position to the results of the first round of Geneva-2.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described those results as “modest but encouraging.”
Moscow has hailed as positive the fact that the Syrian conflicting parties sat down at the negotiating table within the Geneva-2 framework and that none has “slammed the door” so far.
UN and Arab League special envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi sounded more pessimistic. “Unfortunately, we have achieved nothing,” Brahimi told reporters in Munic. He voiced hope that the next round of Geneva-2, scheduled for February 10, would take place in a more constructive atmosphere.
Washington apparently doubts that, hence its latest offer.
So far, it’s not very clear whether it’s about a parallel conference involving regional players or a kind of permanent communication channel between them.
A Kommersant diplomatic source in a leading European country has described the US proposal as “useful.”
“Any means that can stop the bloodshed should be used,” the source said. He believes that the European Union – “Syria’s key humanitarian aid donor” – should also have a part in the future regional talks.
“It would be wrong to underestimate the positive role the Europeans could play in that process,” the diplomat said.
However, considering how hard convening Geneva-2 proved to be, organizing regional talks may also be a challenge.
Syria Government Says Women, Children Can Leave Homs
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi gives a short press briefing upon his arrival to the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 26, 2014, as Syria’s government and opposition met for UN-mediated talks.
U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi says Syrian government delegates, at peace talks in Geneva, have agreed to allow women and children to immediately leave a besieged district in the central city of Homs.
Homs is one of Syria’s largest cities and has been pounded by government assaults to reclaim control from rebel forces.
The breakthrough followed two rounds of talks Sunday between the U.N. mediator and representatives of Syria’s government and the opposition.
The early talks in Geneva, Switzerland, focused on the release of thousands of prisoners, including women, children and the elderly, from Syrian prisons.
Brahimi told a press conference later Sunday the opposition has agreed to a government request for a list of detainees held by armed rebel groups.
Brahimi said he will meet the two sides jointly on Monday. The idea of forming a transitional governing body might come up then.
Syria talks: Civilians to be allowed out of Homs old city
The old city of Homs has been under siege by government forces
Syria will allow women and children to leave the besieged area of Homs “from now”, the UN mediator at the Geneva peace talks has told reporters.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said women and children were free to leave. He said armed groups were preventing them from leaving.
Mr Brahimi said that the opposition had agreed to give the government lists of detainees held by armed groups.
He said it was “too early” to assess the prospects of a comprehensive deal.
Mr Brahimi said he hoped a humanitarian convoy from the UN and the Red Cross would be able to go to Homs on Monday.
Mr Mekdad said he hoped arrangements could be made with local officials to allow the convoy access but that the aid must not fall into “the hands of terrorists”, the term Syrian officials for all armed opposition.
Lakhdar Brahimi said that the government would allow women and children to leave immediately but had asked for a list of adult male civilians who wanted to leave to ensure they were not fighters.
Lakhdar Brahimi is representing the UN and Arab League at the Syria talks in Geneva. Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA
Syrian government and opposition negotiators are struggling to agree on a local ceasefire to allow humanitarian relief supplies into Homs, on the second day of UN-mediated talks about confidence-building measures.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the Algerian diplomat representing the UN and Arab League, is trying to nail down an agreement allowing aid through to a rebel-held area of the central Syrian town. But government officials said the talks in Geneva did not need to deal with the issue, underlying their unhappiness with the conference, which is seeking to end a war that has claimed 130,000 lives and made two million people refugees.
Brahimi said on Saturday that the negotiations had got off to a “good beginning”, but said the two sides were speaking only through him and not directly to each other.
In Sunday’s first session the format was the same. In the afternoon the teams convened in separate rooms at the UN HQ, with the veteran mediator shuttling between them.
In the morning, opposition delegates placed on an empty chair a photograph of Abdel-Aziz al-Khayr, of the moderate Damascus-based National Co-ordination Bureau, who was detained in 2012, probably by the regime. The point was to demonstrate how Bashar al-Assad’s repression targeted even his mildest critics.
Munzer Aqbiq, spokesman for the western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), accused Assad of stalling on the Homs aid convoy. Buthaina Shaaban, the president’s media adviser, said the matter was being dealt with in Damascus. Western diplomats said the official Syrian delegation had denied knowing about the relief plan – which was drawn up with input from the US and Russia, as well as the UN and Red Cross – when it was raised.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he won’t agree to a security accord with the U.S. unless a peace process is begun in his country.
A bilateral security agreement, or BSA, which would enable some U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, “can be signed if the U.S honestly starts a peace process,” Karzai said in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The U.S. and allied forces have said they’ll leave the war-torn nation by the end of 2014 if a BSA isn’t completed. A meeting of tribal elders in November backed such an agreement and urged Karzai to sign it before the end of 2013. The president instead called on the U.S. to start a peace process with the Taliban and ensure transparent elections this year.
Afghan president says U.S. should start talks with Taliban or leave
By Mirwais Harooni
KABULSat Jan 25, 2014 8:01am EST
Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during a news conference in Kabul January 25, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Mohammad Ismail
(Reuters) – President Hamid Karzai appeared to stiffen his resolve on Saturday not to sign a security pact with Washington, saying the United States should leave Afghanistan unless it could restart peace talks with the Taliban.
“In exchange for this agreement, we want peace for the people of Afghanistan. Otherwise, it’s better for them to leave and our country will find its own way,” Karzai told a news conference.
The president said pressing ahead with talks with the Taliban, in power from 1996-2001, was critical to ensure that Afghanistan was not left with a weak central government.
“Starting peace talks is a condition because we want to be confident that after the signing of the security agreement, Afghanistan will not be divided into fiefdoms,” he said.
Most diplomats now agree that Karzai is unlikely to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that would allow for some form of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after the end of 2014, when most troops are due to leave.
Along with reviving peace talks with the Taliban, Karzai is also demanding an end to all U.S. military operations on Afghan homes and villages, including strikes by pilotless trones.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi: “The huge ambition of this project is to save Syria, no less than that”
Syria’s opposition and government will meet “in the same room” in Geneva on Saturday after the first day of a peace conference ended with no direct talks.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks with both sides on Friday, said they all understood that the conference was trying to “save Syria”.
The two sides have blamed each other for a lack of progress.
Diplomats say they are now aiming at small concessions such as local truces rather than an overall peace deal.
An unnamed source at the talks told Reuters news agency that the two sides had agreed to spend the next 48 hours discussing humanitarian access to the besieged city of Homs.
Lakhdar Brahimi’s announcement that the two sides will, after all, meet face-to-face is the first genuinely positive moment since these talks began on Wednesday.
Just a few hours earlier it looked as if Geneva II would end as it started, amid rancour and accusations. The Syrian government threatened to leave, and the opposition continued to insist it did not even want to see government representatives unless they agreed that President Assad had no place in a future transitional government.
Somehow, in separate talks, Mr Brahimi managed to persuade them to stay. The first face-to-face meeting is now scheduled for Saturday morning. If it goes well, there may be further meetings in the afternoon.
Exactly what will be discussed remains unclear: if the two sides focus on better access for aid agencies, or even some temporary local ceasefires, then progress may be made. If they continue to make President Assad’s future their starting point, they may get nowhere. As Mr Brahimi said, no-one expected these talks to be easy.
“The practical aspects have been worked on, things are ready and if the government doesn’t put a block on it then it could happen quickly,” said the source.
Supporters of President Bashar al-Assad have surrounded rebels in Homs, besieging the central areas of the city for more than a year.
‘Encouraging discussions’
The delegates are reportedly still not prepared to talk to each other directly, but are expected to communicate via Mr Brahimi.
“Tomorrow everybody will be in the same room but everybody will address Mr Lakhdar Brahimi,” Louay Safi, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Coalition, told reporters late on Friday.
Preliminary talks began on Wednesday in Montreux, and Mr Brahimi spent Thursday and Friday attempting to persuade both sides to agree to meet face-to-face.
Friday was supposed to be the first day of official talks, but neither side would meet the other.
Syria’s foreign minister and head of the government negotiating team, Walid Muallem (centre), arrives at the UN in Geneva to meet mediator Lakhdar Brahimi. Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images
Long-awaited direct peace talks between the Syrian government and rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad failed to get under way as expected on Friday morning after Damascus insisted on ending “terrorism” before seeking a political solution to end nearly three years of war and misery.
The UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting both sides separately in Geneva for the second consecutive day to iron out procedural and agenda issues before a first round of negotiations at the Palais des Nations.
But Walid Muallem, Syria‘s foreign minister and head of its delegation, raised the stakes by warning that he would return to Damascus unless serious talks began by Saturday, Syrian state TV reported.
Face-to-face talks were due to follow on from where Wednesday’s 40-nation international conference in nearby Montreux left off. It would be the first direct contact between the opposing parties since the anti-Assad uprising began in March 2011. An estimated 130,000 people have been killed since then, 2 million Syrians have fled abroad and a total of 9 million are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
Angry remarks in Montreux by Muallem left the western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) claiming that it alone was committed to the 2012 agreement – known as Geneva I – to create a “transitional governing body”. Assad, president since succeeding his father in 2000, has insisted repeatedly that he will not step down. The opposition says he must go. Brahimi’s problem is how to square that circle.
President of the Syrian National Coalition Ahmad Al-Jarba looks on during his meeting with Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy (not pictured) in Cairo, November 26, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
(Reuters) – Syria’s main political opposition group in exile agreed on Saturday to attend internationally sponsored peace talks, and said for the first time three rebel fighting forces also wanted to take part.
The agreement by the Syrian National Coalition – and the chance of fighters backing the process – will be a boost for Western supporters of the “Geneva 2” talks seen as the most serious global effort yet to end the near three-year conflict.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was not immediately available to comment on the prospect of rebel militia representatives playing a role at the negotiations to end fighting that killed more than 100,000 people.
National Coalition spokesman Louay Safi told Reuters the Soldiers of the Levant, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and the Mujahideen Army all wanted “to have some representation within the delegation” at the talks on Wednesday in Montreux.
It was not immediately clear what role they might play.
Rebel brigades had previously rejected Geneva – demanding the removal of Assad before talks. Their support is seen as critical if any deals have any chance of being rolled out.
All three are established forces, through restrictions on journalists in Syria makes it impossible to give independent estimates of their size.
A fourth fighting group, the Islamic Front – thought to be bigger than the other three combined – was still deciding whether to attend, Safi added.
Al Qaeda-linked rebels, increasingly involved in the fighting, have shown no interest in a political process.
The fractured National Coalition itself has little influence on the ground in Syria.
Major Isam el Rayyes, spokesman of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, confirmed his group was now interested.
“The Syrian Revolutionaries Front and two other major fronts want to be represented at Geneva but we will not send our brigade leaders,” he told Reuters.
Mr Kerry (C) and Mr Lavrov (R) met in Paris, along with Mr Brahimi (L)
The US and Russia have discussed the possibility of “localised ceasefires” in Syria ahead of peace talks to be held in Switzerland next week.
Russia also said Syria was considering opening humanitarian access to besieged rebel areas.
A prisoner exchange is also under consideration, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
The two men are in Paris to discuss arrangements for the Geneva talks.
“We talked today about the possibility of trying to encourage a ceasefire, maybe a localised ceasefire in Aleppo,” Mr Kerry told a news conference after talks with Mr Lavrov and Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN and Arab League envoy for Syria.
Both Mr Kerry and Lavrov said they hoped ceasefires could be in place before the talks, along with plans for prisoner exchanges and the opening of humanitarian corridors.
Mr Kerry said it was up to the Syrian government to show they were serious.
“I’m pleased to say that Foreign Minister Lavrov indicated that he’s had some conversations with the [Syrian] regime, that the regime may be prepared to open up a number of areas, specifically al-Gouta which we have been pushing for for some period of time, and it may be possible for convoys now to be able to access,” he said.
Jan 13 (Reuters) – Syria‘s government and some rebels may be willing to permit humanitarian aid to flow, enforce local ceasefires and take other confidence-building measures in the nearly three-year-old civil war, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday.
Kerry said that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “talked today about the possibility of trying to encourage a ceasefire. Maybe a localized ceasefire, beginning with Aleppo,” Syria’s largest city. “And both of us have agreed to try to work to see if that could be achieved.”
Syrian rebels backed by Washington have agreed that, if the government commits to such a partial ceasefire, “they would live up to it”, Kerry said.
Given the history of failed attempts to end the war, which has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced millions, it remains far from clear that even a partial ceasefire can be achieved or, if it is, can hold.
It also seems unlikely to be honored by powerful militant islamist rebel factions, some of whom are at war with both Damascus and other rebel groups backed by the West and Gulf states.
But diplomats are trying to persuade the combatants to agree to a series of steps to improve the atmosphere for Syrian peace talks planned for Switzerland on Jan. 22.
Kerry spoke at a press conference in Paris with Lavrov and Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. Secretary General’s top Syria envoy.
Lavrov, whose government backs Assad, said the Syrian government had indicated it might provide access for humanitarian aid to reach besieged areas. He specifically cited the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, where 160,000 people have been largely trapped by fighting, according to the United Nations.
“We await similar steps by the opposition,” Lavrov said.
Kerry expressed some scepticism that Assad’s government would follow through.
“The proof will be in the pudding, as we say,” he said. “This news of a possibility is welcome.”
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