Syria willing to halt bombing of Aleppo for six weeks
The Syrian government has expressed a willingness to halt all bombing and artillery shelling of the country's largest city of Aleppo for a period of six weeks, UN envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura has announced, Sputnik reported.
"The government of Syria has indicated to me a willingness to halt all aerial bombing, all types, and artillery shelling for a period of six weeks all over the city of Aleppo, from a date which we will be announcing from Damascus," de Mistura told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
"We will engage very much the opposition to see them respond to a similar request from UN to halt mortar and rocket fire all over the city of Aleppo for six weeks," de Mistura added, saying that the political process that Cairo and Moscow have generated will also be pursued by the United Nations, which will "build on it with a UN initiative."
Between January 26 and 29, representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition took part in peace talks in Moscow, seeking to end ongoing hostilities in Syria. After the talks, a Syrian opposition delegate told RIA Novosti that a second round of negotiations on the Syrian conflict could take place in the Russian capital in late February or early March.
Staffan de Mistura officially put forward an initiative on a ceasefire in Syria's Aleppo during his visit to Damascus in November 2014, in the course of talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who said that the idea was worth studying.
De Mistura told reporters on Tuesday that Assad is "part of the solution" in Syria.