UN Security Council welcomes Syria truce, rebels warn they could abandon it
The United Nations Security Council on Saturday welcomed a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war, but rebel groups threatened to abandon the two-day-old truce if violations persisted.
A resolution welcoming the ceasefire, the third truce this year seeking to end nearly six years of war, was adopted unanimously by the 15-member Council, meeting in New York.
The deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey, which back opposing sides, reduced violence, but firefights, air strikes and shelling went on in some areas.
Factions belonging to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - a loose alliance of militias excluding more radical Islamist groups - said government forces and Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had been trying to push rebels back in the Wadi Barada valley, northwest of Damascus.
"Continued violations by the regime and bombardment and attempts to attack areas under the control of the revolutionary factions will make the agreement null and void," said a statement from the rebel groups.
The rebels and political opposition said the government side was massing forces to launch a ground attack in the area. There has been no new announcement by the military since it launched operations in the area last week.
FSA factions said in a separate statement that they would abandon the truce deal if Russia, whose air power has helped President Bashar al-Assad to turn the tide of the war, did not use its influence to halt the Wadi Barada attacks by 8 p.m. (1800 GMT).
Later, two rebel officials said air raids around Wadi Barada had stopped just before 8 p.m. and that the ceasefire therefore still held, although clashes in the area were continuing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group confirmed that there had been fighting in the area, source of most of the capital's water, and said there had also been government shelling in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Deraa.
PUTIN-ROUHANI CALL
Russia's Defence Ministry said on Friday that rebels had violated the truce 12 times in 24 hours. Much of Friday's violence took place along the border between Hama and Idlib provinces in northwest Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed in a telephone call on Saturday to work together to try to end the Syria crisis and make a success of peace talks planned for the Kazakh capital Astana, the Kremlin said in a statement.
The British-based Observatory said the level of fighting had fallen on Saturday, and the truce was not currently at risk, although one rebel official said it was "in serious danger".
In their statement, the FSA factions said it appeared the government and opposition had signed two different versions of the ceasefire deal, one of which was missing "a number of key and essential points that are non-negotiable", but did not say what those were.
The ceasefire deal is the first not to involve the United States or the United Nations.
The Security Council welcomed the truce despite being urged by the FSA factions not to endorse the deal until the Syrian government and Russia had shown they would respect it.
The resolution also welcomed plans for the talks in Kazakhstan before a resumption of U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva in February.
The war has killed more than 300,000 people and made more than 11 million homeless.
Even with a successful truce between Assad and the main armed opposition, the multi-sided conflict will continue.
In particular, Turkey is trying to push back Kurdish forces and the jihadist Islamic State, both excluded from the deal, from areas south of its border.
The position of other Islamist groups such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham with respect to the ceasefire is unclear; both have criticised it.
(Reporting by John Davison and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in Beirut, Polina Devitt in Moscow, Yeganeh Torbati in Washington and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Adrian Croft)
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Syria conflict: UN welcomes Russia-Turkey truce efforts
The UN Security Council has voted to back efforts by Russia and Turkey to end fighting in Syria and plans for fresh peace talks next month.
The resolution, drafted by Russia, also calls for rapid access for humanitarian aid to be delivered across the country.
Turkey and Russia led a ceasefire deal that has mostly held since Thursday.
The resolution helps pave the way for talks in Kazakhstan between the Syrian government and opposition, which have the backing of Russia, Iran and Turkey.
Earlier Syria's main rebel alliance threatened to abandon the truce by 18:00 GMT if the government continued to attack areas under its control.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA) issued the ultimatum to Russia - Syria's key ally - amid reports of intense bombardment by government forces on the rebel-held Wadi Barada area of Damascus.
But shelling on the area concerned ceased just minutes before the deadline, the group's legal adviser, Osama Abu Zeid, said.
The new ceasefire deal applies across Syria but excludes the jihadists of so-called Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), and the Kurdish YPG militia.
Who supports who at the UN?
The UN resolution comes against a backdrop of deadlock among the veto-wielding members of the Security Council, with Russia supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the US, UK and France insisting he must step down as part of any deal to end the war.
Russia and Turkey also back opposite sides in the conflict, with Turkey supporting the rebellion against Mr Assad.
Russia's Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, appealed to council members to give the latest ceasefire efforts a chance, saying: "Don't just keep repeating outdated cliches."
"Let us work very seriously on this and ensure that in 2017 we achieve a political settlement of the Syria crisis," he added.
Why is Wadi Barada so important?
On Thursday, the UN expressed concern about the fighting in the town, saying fighters were deliberately targeting and damaging springs used to supply some four million people in the Damascus area with drinking water.
On Saturday, the FSA accused the government and Iranian militias of "brazen violations" in the town and planning a "massacre" which would "lead to an immediate end" of the truce.
"We call on Russia which signed the agreement as a guarantor for the regime and its allies to bear its responsibility," the rebels said.
The FSA added that it was "fully committed to the ceasefire in accordance with a comprehensive truce which does not exclude any area or faction present in opposition areas".
Who is included in the truce agreement?
On the one side, Syrian government forces, allied militias and the Russian military.
On the other, the FSA plus several other groups.
The Russian defence ministry named seven "moderate opposition formations" included in the truce as Faylaq al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Thuwwar Ahl al-Sham, Jaysh al-Mujahidin, Jaysh Idlib and Jabhah al-Shamiya.
Ahrar al-Sham, which said it had "reservations" about the deal, and Jaysh al-Islam are Islamist groups that Russia has previously described as terrorist organisations.
Who is not included?
IS and JFS and the groups affiliated to them", are not part of the agreement, according to the Syrian army.
JFS said on Friday it would continue to fight President Assad, with a spokesman saying the political solution under the truce would "reproduce the criminal regime".
Members of the group are currently operating as part of a rebel alliance that controls Idlib province.
The militia, which has captured large swathes of north-eastern Syria from IS with US support, is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey.
The truce is nominally nationwide, although that really only covers the areas where the sides who have signed up have a presence - western Syria.
