A Red Crescent convoy carrying humanitarian aid arrives ion the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, Syria, on Tuesday. Picture: AFP PHOTO/AMER ALMOHIBANY
A Red Crescent convoy carrying humanitarian aid arrives ion the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, Syria. Picture: AFP/AMER ALMOHIBANY

Related articles

In this article

GENEVA/MOSCOW/ANKARA — The United Nations top envoy for Syria will announce before a ceasefire deadline at midnight on Friday possible plans to resume peace talks for the conflict-ravaged country, he told reporters.

"Tomorrow is going to be a very important, I will say a crucial day," Staffan de Mistura said at the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva.

He promised to meet with journalists at about 10pm GMT on Friday "to assess where we are and indicate also the information regarding the resumption of Geneva talks".

Before that can happen though, Syria’s warring parties have until midday Damascus time (10pm GMT) to sign up for a ceasefire deal brokered by Moscow and Washington.

After that the 17-nation group backing Syria’s peace process will meet in Geneva to approve the text before the 15 members of the Security Council are expected to adopt it, paving the way for the "cessation of hostilities" between President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and non-jihadist rebel forces to begin by midnight Damascus time (10pm GMT).

Mr de Mistura said he would brief the Security Council at 8pm GMT by video link from Geneva, before addressing the media in Geneva.

The ceasefire deal — which excludes the Islamic State group and other Sunni extremists — marks the biggest diplomatic push yet to help end the five-year conflict in Syria which has claimed more than 270,000 lives and displaced more than half of the population.

The proposed truce is part of a plan announced by top diplomats in Munich earlier this month that also included expanded humanitarian access.

"Both deliverables are moving, and moving in the right direction," Mr de Mistura said, describing the work done since the Munich meeting as "momentous".

But while humanitarian access has made dramatic progress, with convoys reaching six besieged areas and delivering aid to 110,000 people, the cessation of hostilities failed to take hold last week as initially planned.

If it does kick off on Saturday, that could pave the way for UN-led peace negotiations to resume after they collapsed in Geneva earlier this month.

In Moscow on Thursday, Russia’s foreign ministry said the ceasefire process was under way despite what it said were attempts by some US officials to sabotage it.

Maria Zakharova, the ministry spokeswoman, told reporters that Moscow and Washington were exchanging information on the ceasefire plan.

Turkey, meanwhile, said the ceasefire was valid only inside Syria and was "not binding" for Turkey if its national security was threatened.

"It must be known that the ceasefire is valid in Syria," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday in televised remarks in the central Anatolian province of Konya.

"When it is a question of Turkey’s security, then the ceasefire is not binding for us," he said.

Turkey on successive days last week targeted Kurdish fighters inside Syria with artillery barrages, saying that the army was responding to incoming fire, and had repeatedly reserved the right to open fire again.

Mr Davutoglu said Turkey would closely monitor how the ceasefire would be implemented, adding: "We support the ceasefire under any circumstances."

Turkey has demanded that the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia should remain outside the scope of the truce. It sees both as offshoots of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies.

A militant Kurdish group claimed a suicide car bomb that killed 29 people in the capital Ankara last week but Turkish officials said the bomber was a Syrian Kurd working on behalf of the PYD, which has denied being behind the attack.

A spokesman for a different Kurdish group in Syria — People’s Protection Units (YPG) — said on Thursday they would respect a ceasefire due to start this weekend, while retaining the right to "retaliate" if attacked.

"We … give great importance to the process of cessation of hostilities announced by the US and Russia and we will respect it, while retaining the right to retaliate … if we are attacked," YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said on his Facebook page.

Humanitarian reprieve

The planned cessation of hostilities would rescue the civilian population from "the abyss" and end the "black chapter" of sieges, Jan Egeland, special adviser to the UN Syria envoy, said on Thursday.

However, an air-drop of food to 200,000 people in the besieged town of Deir al-Zor on Wednesday ran into problems, with all the 21 palettes dropped by parachute being damaged, going off-target or unaccounted for, a spokeswoman for the UN World Food Programme said.

Reuters and AFP