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UN Security Council fails to agree on ceasefire across Syria: Russia

Thursday, 22 February 2018 7:20 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 22 February 2018 7:26 PM ]

Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia speaks at a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria on February 22, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Russia says no agreement was reached at the United Nations Security Council on a month-long ceasefire across Syria as the conflict deepens in the Arab country due to a sharp rise in terrorist attacks.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia made the announcement on Thursday after a council meeting on a draft resolution demanding a 30-day truce in Syria amid renewed violence in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region.

Sweden and Kuwait, two non-permanent members of the Security Council, had proposed the ceasefire measure in Syria to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid and medical evacuations.

On Wednesday, Nebenzia presented amendments to the draft resolution, saying, "We cannot simply decide that there is a ceasefire."

"That's a long and complex process to achieve. Cessations cannot be established by putting a word in the resolution," he noted.

Earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed Moscow's readiness to consider the ceasefire in Syria, but only if it does not cover the Daesh, the al-Nusra Front and other terrorist groups which "conduct systematic shelling of the residential quarters of Damascus."

"It is hard to oppose a call to a ceasefire with the goal for civilians to take a breather, to supply humanitarian aid and medication and to offer assistance to people in a difficult situation," Lavrov said.

PressTV-‘Russia to back UN truce in Syria but not for militants’

Russia says it will consider supporting a UN-proposed ceasefire in Syria if it does not cover the Daesh and the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist groups.

Eastern Ghouta near Damascus has witnessed renewed violence in the past few days, where terrorists have mounted repeated mortar attacks on the Syrian capital in the face of an imminent rout.

Terrorist attack kills 3, injures 22

Separately on Thursday, a total of three civilians, among them two children, were killed and 22 others wounded in terrorist attacks on Damascus and its countryside.

A source at Damascus Police Command told the official SANA news agency that the casualties came after armed groups positioned in Eastern Ghouta fired mortar shells on several nearby residential neighborhoods.

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