A senior Syrian opposition official yesterday said that dates for a resumption of UN-backed peace talks remained hypothetical as long as the current cessation of hostilities does not meet its humanitarian demands.
“As long as the truce does not help implement the terms [of the UN resolution], all dates for the resumption of negotiations remain hypothetical,” Syrian opposition official George Sabra told Arabic news channel Arabiya al-Hadath.
The Syrian opposition has repeatedly said it wants full access for humanitarian aid across the country, a lifting of sieges by government forces, a release of detainees and a halt to air strikes before it will take part in peace negotiations.
Photo: EPA
“What is the value of a truce if its overseers — meaning America and Russia — do not push all sides to abide by it?” Sabra said.
His remarks came as Syrian government forces launched an attack to capture a rebel-held hill in the northwest, a rebel official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, an expansion of operations that have continued in that area despite the ceasefire.
Rebels said the assault on Kabani hill in the province of Latakia was supported by Russian air strikes.
Both the government and rebels have accused each other of violating the truce, which took effect on Saturday last week.
The agreement does not include the Islamic State group or the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked group that has a wide presence in northwestern Syria.
The hill overlooks the rebel-held town of Jisr al-Shughour in neighboring Idlib Province, and the Ghab Plain, where rebel advances last year were seen as a growing threat to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“The regime and militias are trying to storm [the hill] under very fierce Russian air cover and artillery fire,” said Fadi Ahmad, spokesman for the First Coastal Division, a group fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.
On Tuesday, al-Assad promised to do his part to guarantee the success of the shaky ceasefire.
He said the truce provided a “glimmer of hope” for Syria, where more than 270,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted.
“We will do our part so that the whole thing works,” al-Assad told German public broadcaster ARD, referring to the cessation of hostilities reached by the US and Russia. “We have refrained ourselves from retaliating in order to give [a] chance for the agreement to survive. That’s what we can do, but at the end everything has a limit. It depends on the other side.”
Al-Assad also offered an amnesty to opposition fighters if they agree to disarm.
“The most important thing for me, legally and constitutionally ... [is] that you’re not allowed, as a citizen, to hold machineguns and hurt people or properties,” he said. “This is the only thing that we ask. We don’t ask for anything. As I said, we give them full amnesty.”
The ceasefire has brought relative calm to swathes of territory in Syria’s north, south, and around the capital, where civilians were back on the streets demonstrating against the regime.
In the besieged rebel town of Daraya, near Damascus, dozens of young men chanted against the government and carried signs reading “Daraya will not kneel!”
“Of course we’re going to seize this opportunity (to protest) because the rest of the time there were constant barrel bombs and shelling,” activist Shadi Matar said.
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