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Syrian ceasefire not dead, says US after aid convoy bombing Ban Ki-moon condemns 'apparently deliberate' Syria aid convoy attack
(about 4 hours later)
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has insisted that a week-old Syrian ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US is not dead despite the bombing of an aid convoy and intensive airstrikes on Aleppo. Ban Ki-moon has used his farewell address to the UN general assembly to denounce the “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack” on a UN food relief convoy that killed at least 20 people.
His words came as foreign ministers in the International Syria Support Group – including Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov – met in New York before the start of the 71st UN general assembly. The outgoing secretary general told world leaders who had gathered in New York that the UN had been forced to suspend aid convoys in Syria because of Monday’s attack on Syrian Red Crescent trucks that were carrying UN food supplies to a rural area west of Aleppo city.
The UN had earlier suspended aid convoys in the war-torn country after a fleet of trucks carrying food to a rebel-held area was hit on Monday. Victims of the attack included the local director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Omar Barakat. Ban hailed the dead aid workers as heroes and said “those who bombed them were cowards” before calling for accountability for crimes committed in the war.
But Kerry insisted: “The ceasefire is not dead.” “Just when you think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower,” he said.
The UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura, also said there was still hope of reviving the ceasefire, but admitted that delegates agreed it was in danger. Aid officials said the convoy was hit from the air while food was being unloaded at a warehouse in opposition-controlled Urem al-Kubra.
“The mood is that nobody wants to give this thing up,” the UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, told reporters. US officials have held Moscow responsible for the attack, saying that Russia and the Syrian regime are the only other parties with aircraft, and that Russia had taken responsibility for the regime’s compliance with the ceasefire as part of the 9 September agreement.
“Quite frankly, the Kerry-Lavrov process is the only show in town and we’ve got to get that show back on the road.” But Moscow has not conceded that the convoy was hit by an airstrike, claiming instead that the 18 lorries had “caught fire”. In a statement on Tuesday, the country’s defence ministry said that the aid convoy had been accompanied by a militants’ pickup truck armed with a heavy mortar gun, Russian news agencies reported.
His French counterpart, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said the meeting had been tense but other countries should now help Moscow and Washington overcome their differences. The US officials said there was no doubt the convoy was destroyed in an airstrike and that western coalition forces had no role in it.
“It was a fairly dramatic meeting. The mood was gloomy. Is there hope? I can’t answer that yet, but we should do everything we can,” he said. “There are only three parties that fly in Syria: the coalition, the Russians, and the Syrian regime. It was not the coalition. We don’t fly over Aleppo. We have no reason to. We strike only Isis, and Isis is not there. We would leave it to the Russians and the Syrian regime to explain their actions,” said Capt Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.”
The strike on a convoy of Syrian Red Crescent trucks carrying UN-supplied food was described by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a flagrant violation of international law. In a meeting with John Kerry, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, admitted that the Russian military had been monitoring the convoy – apparent drone surveillance footage of its progress had been live-streamed on a defence ministry website. But he claimed the Russians had “lost track of it when it entered rebel territory”, according to diplomatic sources. Moscow had launched an investigation, Lavrov told the other foreign ministers.
The ICRC said about 20 civilians were killed in the attack, which destroyed 18 trucks laden with food intended for tens of thousands of people cut off by the war in a rural area west of Aleppo city. Despite the outrage caused by the attack, and the continued bombing of rebel-held areas of Aleppo, the US and Russia have refused to declare the Syrian ceasefire dead.
On Tuesday the UN humanitarian aid spokesman, Jens Laerke, said: “As an immediate security measure, other convoy movements in Syria have been suspended for the time being, pending further assessment of the security situation.” Lavrov’s meeting with the US secretary of state was the first since the Syrian military declared itself no longer bound by the ceasefire the two diplomats negotiated, and resumed its air campaign against eastern Aleppo and other rebel-held areas on Monday.
He said the UN had only recently received permission from the Syrian government to deliver aid to besieged areas of the country. Lavrov and Kerry talked in a central New York hotel for about half an hour on Tuesday morning before walking, still in deep discussion, into a broader session with other foreign ministers from the security council, Europe and the Middle East who make up the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). Kerry emerged from the group’s meeting insisting: “The ceasefire is not dead.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it appeared that the attack was carried out by either Syrian or Russian aircraft. But Russia’s defence ministry said neither Russian nor Syrian air forces were involved. “All information on the whereabouts of the convoy was available only to the militants controlling these areas,” a spokesman said. “We are going to continue to work. We are going to meet again Friday on some specific steps,” the secretary of state said.
In comments reported by Interfax, the ministry suggested the convoy had caught fire. Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, said: “Quite frankly, the Kerry-Lavrov process is the only show in town and we have to get that show back on the road.”
Robert Mardini, the ICRC director for the Middle East and north Africa, told Reuters that the Aleppo director for the Syrian Red Crescent, Omar Barakat, was among the dead. The UN later rowed back from saying that the convoy had been targeted in an airstrike. “We are not in a position to determine whether these were in fact airstrikes. We are in a position to say that the convoy was attacked,” its humanitarian spokesman, Jens Laerke, said.
“The team is in shock,” Mardini said. “Omar was badly injured and the rescue team could not reach him for two hours. When he was evacuated he could not survive his wounds.” The ISSG foreign ministers are due to convene again on Friday, though diplomats said the session could be brought forward to Thursday evening, as fighting intensified in Syria.
The bombardment of eastern Aleppo continued until 2am on Monday, according to reports from the city. At least 39 civilians were killed overnight in Aleppo and the surrounding province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said, compared to 27 killed over the whole week when the truce was precariously in force.
The UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura said that none of the foreign ministers in the ISSG meeting had wanted to call an end to the ceasefire despite the renewed bombing, and the attack on the food convoy.
De Mistura described the targeting of the convoy as “outrageous” and hoped it would turn out to be “a gamechanger that will help Friday be a serious meeting about how to reinstall the cessation of hostilities [and] humanitarian aid”.
“The ceasefire is not dead. That I can tell you,” the Swedish envoy added. “It was confirmed by everyone around the table. The ceasefire is in danger. The ceasefire has been seriously affected but the only ones who can announce that the ceasefire is dead are the two co-chairs and they have today not done so. They want to give it another chance.”
The UN emergency relief coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, said that if it was found the convoy had been deliberately targeted, it would constitute a war crime.
Peter Maurer, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) president, said: “Yesterday’s attack was a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and it is unacceptable. Failing to protect humanitarian workers and structures might have serious repercussions on humanitarian work in the country.”
Robert Mardini, the ICRC director for the Middle East and north Africa, confirmed that Barakat, the Aleppo director for the Syrian Red Crescent, was among the dead.
“The team is in shock,” Mardini told Reuters. “Omar was badly injured and the rescue team could not reach him for two hours. When he was evacuated he could not survive his wounds.”
Plans for aid convoys to rebel-besieged Foua and Kefraya in Idlib, and government-blockaded Madaya and Zabadani near the Lebanese border, had been put on hold, he said.Plans for aid convoys to rebel-besieged Foua and Kefraya in Idlib, and government-blockaded Madaya and Zabadani near the Lebanese border, had been put on hold, he said.
The ICRC president, Peter Maurer, said: “Yesterday’s attack was a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and it is unacceptable. Failing to protect humanitarian workers and structures might have serious repercussions on humanitarian work in the country.” The US state department spokesman John Kirby said that the US, Russia and other ISSG ministers had agreed to keep up attacks on Islamic State and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly the al-Qaida affiliated al-Nusra Front, “while recognising the difficulties of separating al-Nusra from the moderate opposition in some areas of the country”.
Another Red Crescent/ICRC convoy to Talbiseh in Homs province made its first delivery since July on Monday, carrying supplies for more than 80,000 people, but it was forced to stay there overnight due to intensified fighting, Mardini said. “They emphasised, in this context, the imperative of ending indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians, which is exploited by terrorist groups. And they stressed the absolute criticality of creating the conditions necessary to resume UN-led political talks in coming weeks,” Kirby said.
Aid officials said the convoy west of Aleppo was hit from the air while unloading food at a warehouse in opposition-controlled Urem al-Kubra. Additional reporting by Spencer Ackerman
Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator, said the convoy had been clearly marked and its route had been provided to all parties in the conflict.
“Let me be clear: if this callous attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of humanitarians, it would amount to a war crime,” O’Brien said. “I call for an immediate, impartial and independent investigation into this deadly incident. The perpetrators should know that they will one day be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”
The US said that, regardless of whether Russian planes were involved, it blamed Moscow for the attack because it was responsible under the ceasefire agreement for reining in Bashar al-Assad’s government forces.
The US State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said: “The destination of this convoy was known to the Syrian regime and the Russian federation and yet these aid workers were killed in their attempt to provide relief to the Syrian people.
“The United States will raise this issue directly with Russia. Given the egregious violation of the cessation of hostilities we will reassess the future prospects for cooperation with Russia.”
Meanwhile, bombs and shells rained down on eastern Aleppo, home to 250,000 people cut off in an opposition-controlled area.
Before Tuesday’s UN general assembly, US officials said hopes of salvaging the ceasefire were fading fast. A senior official said: “At this point, the Russians have the burden of demonstrating very quickly their seriousness of purpose because otherwise, as you say, there’ll be nothing to extend and nothing to salvage.”
Hours before the convoy was hit, Kerry had pointed to the resumption of humanitarian deliveries as a sign that the ceasefire could be starting to bring benefits. But later on Monday, with the ceasefire just short of a week old, the Syrian army issued a statement blaming “terrorist groups” for hundreds of alleged violations and saying it would no longer observe the truce. The ceasefire “was supposed to be a real chance to stop the bloodshed, but the armed terrorist groups flouted this agreement”, the statement said.
However, both Kerry and Ayrault, said Russia and its Syrian government allies had been responsible for the most serious violations.
“The reality, according to the information we are getting from the ground, is that violations of the ceasefire are acts of the regime,” Ayrault told reporters at the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York.
The Syrian army declaration followed the bombing of army positions around Deir ez-Zor by western coalition forces, including the US, Britain, Denmark and Australia. The countries involved said the strikes were aimed at Islamic State frontline positions and unintentionally hit Syrian troops as they fought to take those positions on Tharda mountain.
Russia said the strikes killed 62 Syrian soldiers and injured about 100 others, while the Syrian government said the bombing was done “on purpose and planned in advance”.