De Mistura: Syria Ready for Aleppo Humanitarian Ceasefire

Local Editor

The United Nations envoy to Syria said Tuesday he has received a commitment from the Syrian government to reach a humanitarian truce on the city of Aleppo for six weeks to allow a proposed UN plan to "freeze" hostilities in the country's largest city to be tested.

Staffan de Mistura was briefing the Security Council in closed session on his latest efforts to find a solution to the Syrian crisis. There was no indication of when the suspension of airstrikes would begin, but the envoy said he will return to Syria "as soon as possible" to assess whether the government's commitment is possible and to announce a start date.

He called the new development a glimmer of hope. And he continued to emphasize a political solution to the nearly four-year conflict.

This was de Mistura's first council briefing since he explained his freeze plan in October, and council members wanted to know what kind of support, if any, it received from President Bashar al-Assad in his meeting with de Mistura earlier this month.

"Our hope is that Aleppo could be a signal of goodwill, a confidence-building measure which could and can facilitate the re-starting of a political process with a clear political horizon," he said last month in Geneva.

He also warned that Syria remains fertile ground for extremist armed groups.

De Mistura has urged the international community to make 2015 the year in which movement toward a political settlement of the conflict takes place. He has welcomed consultations in Moscow in late January between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition, the first on Syria since a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva collapsed early last year.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team