Alwaght- Russia and the US, after 13-hours marathon Talks have agreed on a fresh ceasefire on Syria to put Syria's peace process back on track.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the agreement during a joint press conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
The agreement which was reached early on Saturday includes a nationwide truce effective from sundown on Monday, enhanced humanitarian aid access, as well as joint military operation against banned extremist groups. Mandy is the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice), which marks the culmination of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
"Today, Sergei Lavrov and I, on behalf of our presidents and our countries, call on every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russia have reached, to ... bring this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process," John Kerry told the news conference.
He also said the US believed that Moscow had the capability to urge the Syrian government to “stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace,” adding, "The plan is more prescriptive and far reaching than any proposal to date and if implemented by all sides could allow political negotiations to take place on Syria's future."
Touching on fight against al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and its efforts to blend with other militant groups, Kerry stressed “going on Al-Nusra is not a concession to anybody” but “is profoundly in the interests of the US.”
Kerry also outlined an establishment of the Russian-US Joint Implementation Centre (JIG) that would serve the purpose of “delineation of territories controlled by Al-Nusra and opposition groups in the area of active hostilities."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part said that the two countries had agreed to coordinate airstrikes against the terror groups in Syria “provided there is a sustained period of reduced violence.”
The first step toward the implementation of this clause will be a 48-hour ceasefire in Syria, Lavrov said.
Lavrov elaborated that the ceasefire comes into effect on September 12 and should last for at least seven days.
“After the ceasefire regime will be in effect for seven days, we will establish an implementation centre, in which the military and the representatives of Russian and US intelligence will handle practical issues, separating terrorists and opposition,” he added.
The Russian FM said that despite continuing mistrust, the two sides had developed five separate documents that would revive a failed truce agreed in February and enable military coordination between the U.S. and Russia against militant groups in Syria.
Both sides agreed not to release the documents publicly.
“Despite the mistrust and attempt to disrupt what we have agreed upon, we managed to work out a package of documents, there are five of them. It allows us to set an effective coordination in the fight against terrorism, to expand the humanitarian access to distressed population, first and foremost in Aleppo,” Lavrov said.
Due to the sensitive nature of the information contained in the agreements, they will not be made available to general public, Lavrov said.
“We cannot make these documents public. They contain rather serious, sensitive information. We don’t want it to fall into hands of those who would surely try to disrupt the implementation of the measures stipulated within in the framework of humanitarian delivery supplies and in other parts of our agreements.”
The senior Russian diplomat also noted that Moscow had informed the Syrian government about the arrangements and that it was ready to fulfill them.
Despite the agreement, which Kerry said was based “on oversight and compliance” rather than “trust”, it still remains unknown whether Russia and the US have settled their differences over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Washington has always insisted that President Assad must step down before any peace process can yield results, but Russia opposes the idea, arguing that the Syrian president is pivotal to his country's fight against terrorists.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
