RNA - "The Russian air force's pause in conducting missions in Aleppo was unjustifiable because such a delay could lead to a big catastrophe in Aleppo," Mohammad Jalal Darvish told FNA on Wednesday.
He said that the Iranian military advisors and Hezbollah resistance forces' cooperation with the Syrian army and its allies rescued Aleppo from an imminent catastrophe and helped the Syrian army maintain the initiative in the battle against the terrorist groups.
The Russian defense minister announced on October 18 that the country's air force had halted all air strikes on Aleppo, two days ahead of a planned pause in bombing designed to allow rebels and civilians to leave the city.
Sergei Shoigu, in a televised meeting with military officials, said strikes had been halted to help guarantee the safety of six corridors for civilian evacuation and to prepare for the removal of sick and wounded people from eastern Aleppo.
Meantime, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia would not be able to prolong a moratorium on air strikes against targets in Syria's Aleppo if militants in the city continue their attacks on the ground.
"At the moment the pause is continuing, the exit of the civilian population from Eastern Aleppo is being enabled, conditions are being created for humanitarian aid," Peskov told a conference call with reporters.
"But all that is impossible if the terrorists continue to fire on neighborhoods, humanitarian aid routes, launch attacks, and continue to hide behind a human shield. That will not permit the continuation of the humanitarian pause."
"If you remember, we said when the president deemed it necessary to extend the humanitarian pause that, in any case, everything will depend on the position assumed by the terrorists, because continuing the humanitarian pause in the event of resumed militant offensive operations would be impossible," Peskov told reporters.
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