ALEPPO—Under pressure from Russia and the United States, the Syrian army agreed on Wednesday to respect a two-day truce in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo.
The Syrian climb-down came after Washington said the US and Russia had agreed to push the warring parties to extend their shaky ceasefire.
“A truce will be in place in Aleppo for 48 hours from 1:00 am on Thursday (2200 GMT Wednesday),” Syrian army command said, according to state media.
The Russian defense ministry said its ceasefire monitors had agreed with their US counterparts to oversee this truce until midnight on May 6.
But for his part, US Secretary of State John Kerry said a new Aleppo truce had already begun at at midnight Syrian time (2101 GMT Tuesday) and that violence had already fallen off.
On the ground, AFP correspondents said fierce fighting continued in both Aleppo and an area west of Damascus that was already under the ceasefire regime.
“We’ve seen an overall decrease in violence in those areas even though there are some reports of continued fighting in some locations,” Kerry said.
Kerry added that US officials in Geneva were coordinating with their Russian colleagues on “enhanced monitoring efforts for this renewed cessation.”
And he stressed that for Washington, the “cessation of hostilities” must spread nationwide and underpin a return by both sides to peace talks in Geneva.
Russia and the US were joint sponsors of the previous February 27 ceasefire agreement that had begun to fall apart, especially around Aleppo.
The city is divided between Bashar al-Assad’s government forces, Western-backed opposition forces and Al-Nusra Front rebels not party to the ceasefire.
Last week, Russia agreed to a ceasefire in Latakia and a suburb of Damascus but said Assad should be allowed to fight Al-Nusra “terrorists” in Aleppo.
Intense fighting continued in the city, and hospitals in both rebel and government-held areas were hit, which two top UN officials warned Wednesday amounted to war crimes.
On Sunday, Kerry flew to Geneva for talks with UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura, who in turn went to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
By Wednesday, Kerry felt confident enough in Russia’s “buy-in” to the process that the State Department was able to announce what it hopes will be a new truce.