Main Syrian opposition agrees to truce on several conditions

An umbrella group of Syria’s political and armed opposition on Saturday agreed to a temporary truce proposed by world powers on several conditions, including that regime allies Russia and Iran halt fire.

The High Negotiations Committee (HNC) also made its acceptance of the so-called “cessation of hostilities” conditional on the lifting of sieges and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

“The rebel factions agreed in principle on the possibility of reaching a temporary ceasefire provided it is done with international mediation and with guarantees obliging Russia, Iran and their sectarian militias and mercenaries to stop fighting,” HNC chief Riad Hijab said after a meeting in Riyadh.

However, Russia on Saturday pledged to continue backing Syrian government forces against “terrorists”, a term the Syrian regime uses to describe all rebel groups.

The HNC is an umbrella group of political opposition bodies and rebel factions that was formed to participate in negotiations with the regime that collapsed earlier this month after Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes launched an offensive in Aleppo.

After the talks fell apart, world powers on February 12 proposed a ceasefire as part of a plan that also included expanded humanitarian access.

The truce was meant to have gone into effect by Friday, but little progress has been made towards even a temporary halt to the fighting, which has only intensified in recent days.

The HNC said the opposition “wants to respond positively to international efforts to stop the Syrian bloodbath”.

“But … there will not be a truce unless fighting stops simultaneously on the part of all the belligerents, sieges are lifted, humanitarian aid is delivered to those in need, and prisoners, particularly women and children, are released,” it said.

Regime backer Russia and opposition supporter Washington are meant to be co-chairing a UN panel that is working on the modalities of the temporary truce. Russian and US officials met on Friday to try to hammer out the details of the proposed ceasefire, but have yet to outline any concrete proposals.

Russia said UN-led talks on the ceasefire scheduled for Saturday had been postponed to an unspecified later date, raising fresh concerns about whether the truce could be implemented.

Moscow also said its air campaign would continue, saying Russia was “continuing a consistent line to provide assistance and help to the armed forces of Syria in their offensive actions against terrorists”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based body monitoring Syria’s war, reported continuing Russian air strikes in Aleppo province and several other parts of the country.

Russia says its strikes target “terrorists”, but the opposition and its backers accuse Moscow of focusing on moderate and religious hardline rebels rather than extremists such as ISIL, which controls large pasts of eastern Syria.

Despite talks of a truce, there has been little sign that the various parties to the increasingly complicated conflict are preparing to halt operations.

Turkey again shelled Kurdish-led forces on Saturday, a day after the United Nations Security Council rejected a Russian bid to halt Turkish military action in Syria.

Moscow expressed “regret” that the resolution had been rejected, and said it was “concerned at the growing tension at the Syrian-Turkish border”.

Turkey has been firing artillery rounds across its border into northern Aleppo province for the past week, in a bid to stem the advances of a Kurdish-led coalition that has seized territory from rebels.

Ankara is a key backer of the Syrian opposition, and is fiercely opposed to both president Bashar Al Assad’s regime and the powerful Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia.

It accuses the YPG of being the Syrian affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara.

The YPG is the leading component of a joint Kurdish-Arab force that has swept through parts of northern Aleppo in recent days, taking territory from rebels that Turkey backs.

The advance by the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance has angered Turkey, which fears the Kurds are trying to unite several Kurdish-majority regions in north and north-eastern Syria to create a contiguous zone on the border.

Syria’s conflict is now approaching its sixth year, after beginning with anti-government protests in March 2011.

It now involves an array of groups including moderate and hardline rebels, extremists from Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front and ISIL, the Kurds, and regime forces backed by Russia and Iran and Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement.

More than 260,000 people have been killed in the conflict, and half the country’s population has been displaced.

Source: Main Syrian opposition agrees to truce on several conditions | The National