Russia said it would hold talks with Washington yesterday on a total rebel withdrawal from Syria’s Aleppo, where the Syrian army has made sweeping advances, but opposition factions have rejected any evacuation.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have seized two-thirds of the former rebel bastion in east Aleppo since they began an operation to recapture all of the battered second city in the middle of last month.
The assault has raised an international outcry, but Russia and China on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in the city.
Photo: AP
Tens of thousands of east Aleppo residents have fled to other parts of the city to escape the fighting, which has raised widespread international concern.
The rapid regime gains have left opposition fighters reeling and come ahead of talks in Geneva yesterday on a rebel evacuation.
“During the Russian-American consultations the concrete route and timeframe for the withdrawal of all fighters from eastern Aleppo will be agreed upon,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Monday. “As soon as these routes and timeframes are agreed on, a ceasefire can come into effect.”
Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said the two sides “are close to an agreement on the basic elements.”
However, US Deputy Representative to the UN Michele Sison suggested there was no deal, saying “we will not let Russia string along the [UN] Security Council.” “We will continue bilateral negotiations [with Russia] to relieve the suffering in Aleppo, but we have not reached a breakthrough, because Russia wants to keep its military gains,” she added.
Rebel groups swiftly rejected any talk of an evacuation.
Yasser al-Youssef of the Nureddin al-Zinki faction, a leading rebel group in Aleppo, described any such proposal as “unacceptable.”
“It is for the Russians to leave,” he told reporters.
Moscow is a close ally of al-Assad’s government and launched a military intervention in support of Damascus last year.
Syrian government troops have also been bolstered by Iranian forces, fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement and Shiite fighters from other countries.
“The revolutionaries will not leave Aleppo and will fight the Russian and Iranian occupation until the last drop of blood,” said Abu Abdel Rahman al-Hamawi of the Army of Islam, another smaller rebel group active in Aleppo.
Rebels have been forced to evacuate several of their strongholds in Syria during the conflict, including a string of areas near Damascus in recent months.
In many instances, they have reached deals with the government after months of army siege and fierce fighting, agreeing to lay down their arms in return for safe passage to rebel territory elsewhere.
Among the most well-known evacuations was the 2014 exit of rebels from the Old City of Homs after a two-year government siege.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese