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Russia seeks UN guarantee for new humanitarian pause in Syria

Sunday, 13 November 2016 6:16 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 13 November 2016 6:35 AM ]

Militants from the Jaish al-Fatah Takfiri terror group watch as smoke billows in the background at an entrance to the war-wrecked northwestern Syria city of Aleppo on November 3, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Russia says the United Nations mission in Syria should first guarantee its ability to deliver aid to Aleppo’s militant-held east so that Moscow can agree to a new humanitarian pause in the embattled city.

On the orders of President Vladimir Putin, the Russian military unilaterally stopped its airstrikes against terrorist positions in Aleppo in October to facilitate the exit of civilians and militants from the eastern parts of the city through humanitarian corridors.

Moscow has introduced recurrent humanitarian pauses there to contribute to the process of evacuations and aid transfer to Aleppo.

The Russian Defense Ministry says the UN task force has to “officially confirm their readiness and possibility to deliver humanitarian aid to eastern Aleppo and to evacuate wounded and sick civilians” as militants have abused the previous pauses to intensify their attacks.

Major-General Igor Konashenkov, who delivered the announcement on Saturday, said the earlier humanitarian pauses announced by Moscow would see the terrorists firing at anyone coming in or getting out of the city.

Earlier this week, Moscow rejected a UN request to prolong future humanitarian pauses in Aleppo, saying such a move would enable the militants operating there to regain strength.

Aleppo has been divided over the past four years between government forces in the west and foreign-backed militants in the east, making it a front-line battleground.

Terror outfits have stepped deadly attacks against civilians and government forces in Aleppo’s west in the face of the losses they have been suffering on the battlefield.

Late last month, the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned that the attacks by Takfiri militants could amount to war crimes. He voiced his shock at the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons by the militants during their onslaught on civilian suburbs in western Aleppo.

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its chemical warfare defense unit had found signs of the use of chemical agents by militants in Aleppo.

The experts “found evidence of chemical weapon use by terrorists against the civilian population and Syrian servicemen” in the form of unexploded shells bearing chlorine and white phosphorus in the city’s 1070 district, it said.

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