Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on the United States to actively participate in monitoring of the Syrian ceasefire instead of merely accusing Syrian government forces of violations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
Lavrov Urges Deeper US Involvement in Syrian Ceasefire Monitoring
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160917/1045410690/lavrov-us-syria-ceasefire.html
Earlier in the day, Lavrov held a phone conversation with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the initiative of the US side. The two diplomats discussed the new September 9 US-Russian Syrian ceasefire deal which took effect on September 12.
"Due to Washington's continuing claims of ceasefire violations by the Syrian government forces, the Russian foreign minister urged to go beyond accusations and to ensure the US military's full-fledged participation in the ceasefire control mechanism created as far back as in February and March and taking action against its violations," the ministry said in a statement.
Lavrov also called on the United States to exert necessary pressure on the militants to facilitate expansion of the humanitarian access in Syria, according to the statement.
The Russian General Staff said that the United States fails to fulfill obligations on Syria, adding that Washington will be responsible for the breakdown of the ceasefire if the situation does not change.
Russian MoD: US Fails to Fulfill Obligations Amid Syria Rebels' Truce Violations
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160917/1045406916/russia-syria-truce.html
The US did not respond to Russia's appeal containing data on the violations of the Syrian truce by US-controlled armed groups, the chief of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko, said Saturday.
"The United States didn't reply to any of our appeals containing information on ceasefire violations by US-controlled armed groups. Moreover, the US side declines telephone conversations, including those planned in advance, as it happened yesterday," Savchenko said during a videoconference.
"This indicates that the United States does not control the situation in Syria and is not ready to take steps to force US-controlled militants to implement ceasefire."
During a video link-up, Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir, the first deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, said the number of ceasefire violations by Syrian rebel groups had been steadily on the rise since the truce came into force last Monday.
"Five days into the truce, we can say that only the Russian and Syrian sides have fulfilled their commitments. The United States and the so-called moderate groups under their control have not fulfilled a single obligation."
"Russia has been doing everything in its power to stop the government troops from responding to the attacks in kind. If the US side does not take steps to fulfill its obligations under the September 9 agreement, it will be fully responsible for the breakdown of the cessation of hostilities regime in Syria," he continued.
Lt. Gen. Poznikhir stressed that the key point in the US-Russia deal was that the United States separates "moderate" opposition groups from Daesh and al-Nusra Front terrorists. Syrian opposition forces violated the nationwide truce 55 times within the past 24 hours, Poznikhir said at a videoconference.
"The number of ceasefire violations by opposition groups has been rising steadily." "There were 55 episodes of shelling from their [Syrian rebels'] side within the past 24 hours."
Of those 55 violations, 27 were detected in the Aleppo province, 11 in the Damascus province, seven in Hama, six in the mountainous Latakia region, two in Homs, and one each in Daraa and Quneitra. Both government positions and civilian targets had been attacked, he stressed.
The military official said
the US-Russia deal for a Syrian ceasefire had been violated a total of 199 times in the past five days since the truce came into effect late Monday.
The situation in Syria is deteriorating, mostly in Aleppo and Hama where opposition groups are using the cessation of hostilities regime to regroup, restock ammunition, weapons and preparing to launch an offensive to grab new territories," Lt. Gen. Poznikhir said.
"Continued shelling, illegal armed groups' failure to comply with the ceasefire regime, the absence of a checkpoint in the militant-controlled eastern part of the Castello Road do not allow to guarantee security of humanitarian access to Aleppo," he continued.
Militants have carried out 26 mortar and rocket attacks on residential areas and Syrian army positions in the city of Aleppo over the past 24 hours, a representative of the Hmeymim-based Russian reconciliation center for Syria said Saturday.
We are in the Ashrafia neighborhood of Aleppo, where residential areas were shelled with mortars and improvised rocket launchers. The situation remains difficult in the Aleppo province and in the city itself. Over the past 24 hours, we recorded 26 instances of residential area and government position shelling by the militants," Col. Sergei Kopytsin said during a video conference outlining the results of the first five days of the new September 12 Syrian ceasefire.
The attacks involved mortars as well as multiple launch rocket systems and anti-tank guided missiles and targeted four districts, a gas plant and farms to the south of the city, he added. "The largest number of casualties was recorded in the Sheikh-Ali-Kobtani district, where three people died and 12 were injured," the representative added. Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir said that an agreement had been reached on allowing a humanitarian convoy access the besieged Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh.
"The Syrian government guarantees the humanitarian convoy's passage through the territory under its control, but the issue of its passage through areas controlled by moderate opposition, which is influenced only by the United States, remains. Measures have still not been taken to separate moderate opposition controlled by the United States from al-Nusra Front," he added.
Washington has been reluctant to make its ceasefire deal with Russia on Syria public because this would turn the spotlight on those who are not complying, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday.
Putin Reveals Why US is Against Making Deal With Russia on Syria Public
https://sputniknews.com/politics/20160917/1045403109/putin-russia-syria.html
Russia has been urging the United States to disclose the details of the deal on Syria, which came into force on Monday. It aims to end violence in Syria and allow for relief aid deliveries.
"The only reason why they apparently don’t want to make it public is because the international community, as well as American and Russian public will immediately find out who is not abiding by the deal," Putin said in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
"We agreed that al-Nusra Front should be distanced from the opposition and that their location should be disclosed as well as that of the so-called healthy [moderate] forces. What do we see instead? We see no separation of terrorists and healthy forces, but rather attempts by terrorists to regroup," he said.
I wish we were honest with each other… And I do not quite understand, why we should conceal any of our agreements. Of course, we will not disclose them, until our US partners agree with it… I repeat that we have rather positive than negative attitude [to these agreements] and we hope the promises given by the US administration will be fulfilled."
Syrian authorities have done everything in their power to allow the passage of humanitarian aid into Aleppo's rebel-held east, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
Damascus Does Everything to Allow Passage of Humanitarian Aid Into East Aleppo
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160917/1045412558/syria-humanitarian-aid-aleppo.html
"The Syrian government confirms that is has done everything possible to ease humanitarian convoy access to eastern Aleppo. Meanwhile, the convoy's security is not guaranteed as militants continue shelling the road which the convoy has to take," the ministry said in a statement.
Having failed to resolve the devastating Syrian conflict by supporting radical armed groups intent on removing Assad, the United States should now disengage itself from the crisis and leave Russia in charge, foreign policy analyst Enea Gjoza wrote for the National Interest.
Russia is the Solution to 'Bloody Stalemate' That US Created in Syria
https://sputniknews.com/politics/20160917/1045400544/russia-syria-us-disengagement.html
The choice is not a pleasant one. However, it is the outcome that best safeguards US interests within the harsh constraints of one of the world's ugliest conflicts," Gjoza, a fellow at Defense Priorities and Master in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, asserted.
His logic is simple. The United States has employed a flawed strategy to resolve the crisis in Syria, a country that does not constitute one of the US' core national interests. Instead of bringing peace to an embattled nation, Washington's approach has been instrumental in protracting violence since it is based on an inherent flaw.
"From the beginning, our policy in Syria has suffered from an inherent contradiction. The United States insists on Assad's ouster as a condition of peace, but the groups that have proven most effective against his forces are hardline Islamic militias, which are themselves anti-American," he explained.
The United States "has ignored this fact" providing support to what policymakers in Washington refer to as "moderate" opposition in a bid to create a force capable of tackling radical groups. This strategy resulted in a major embarrassment for the Pentagon when the US Department of Defense had to admit that a $500 million program produced only "four or five" Syrian fighters ready to participate in anti-Daesh operations.
In addition, "by continuing to arm and support the opposition, despite clear signs of the regime's resilience, the United States ultimately helped transform the initial uprising into a bloody stalemate that destroyed the country and produced millions of refugees," the analyst noted.
For Gjoza, a large-scale military intervention into Syria is not an option that Washington should consider. Likewise, maintaining the existing status quo is also not a good idea since it will lock the country in an endless tug of war. This is why Gjoza has called on the White House to leave the resolution of the Syrian crisis to Russia.
Moscow, he said, "has demonstrated an ironclad commitment to the survival of its client state. Instead of continuing on the current path, the United States should seize the opportunity to let Russia take up the Syrian millstone."
The analyst singled out three benefits of this decision for the US.
Firstly, Washington will receive an opportunity to disentangle itself from a conflict it cannot win. This could well be a smart decision considering that the US military is still active in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Second, it would force a major rival (Russia) to own the burden of restoring order to a ruined nation and bear the cost of failure," he said. "Finally, the Assad government, which is hostile to Islamists and has repeatedly vowed to re-conquer the country, would have to do the fighting and dying necessary to defeat [Daesh] on the ground." 
