Russia:

UN Security Council fails to agree on ceasefire across Syria

Rasa - 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.

News ID: 436558

Date: 24 February 2018 - 06:23

RNA - 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.

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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