Moscow: Syria peace requires multilateral effort
April 29, 2016, 11:15 am

Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed in Aleppo. A monitoring group says 31 children were killed in the latest fighting [Xinhua]

However, Alexey Borodavkin – Moscow’s envoy to the UN in Geneva, Switzerland – said that Syrians will ultimately decide on a ceasefire.

“With the US, we achieved cessation of hostilities in Syria despite actions of terrorists and their patrons. However, neither us nor Americans expected peace in Syria to start right after that,” Borodavkin said in remarks carried by the Russian news agency TASS.

The Russian diplomat’s remarks come days after UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistur gave an impassioned speech warning that a three-month cessation of hostilities was on the verge of collapse.

The Syrian ceasefire “hangs by a thread” he said earlier this week, adding that a Syrian was killed every 25 minutes.

On Friday, both the Syrian government forces and Islamist rebels exchanged fire in the northern city of Aleppo. The Syrian air force flew bombing raids targeting rebel-held areas of the city; the rebels fired artillery into government-held zones.

The uptick in violence has been the worst since the cessation of hostilities went into effect in February.

The UK-based Observatory for Human Rights said that air strikes had killed 123 civilians, while the rebel shelling had killed 71 civilians and injured dozens.

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that more energy is needed from all sides to end the conflict.

“We think that it is principally important for Syrian settlement and has no alternatives. Russia is absolutely open for cooperation with other interested countries, probably, first of all, with US,” he said on Friday.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies