While bombarding Aleppo, Syrian regime says ceasefire 'still alive'
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, speaking to pro-regime Al-Mayadeen TV from New York, also said the government is prepared to take part in a unity government incorporating elements from the opposition, an offer that has been rejected in the past.
“What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism, it’s barbarism,” said US Ambassador Samantha Power. “It’s apocalyptic what is being done in eastern Aleppo.”
Airstrikes on Aleppo on Monday killed at least six people, according to the Local Coordination Committees, an activist-run collective. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported hours later that 12 were killed, including three children.
Al-Moallem accused the US, Britain, and France of convening the Security Council meeting a day earlier in order to support “terrorists” inside Syria. But he said ongoing communications between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meant a truce agreement brokered two weeks ago is “not dead.”
Syria’s military declared the ceasefire ended one week ago.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the Syrian and Russian governments “seem intent on taking Aleppo and destroying it in the process.”
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Syria’s government has launched a “concerted campaign” to strike civilian targets, and that Assad’s forces are trying “to bomb civilians into submission.” He says government forces have also targeted the Civil Defence, volunteer first responders also known as White Helmets.