Members of the United Nations Security Council are meeting Friday to discuss the crisis in Aleppo, a day after a senior UN envoy warned that the war-torn Syrian city could be destroyed within months.
The urgent session follows renewed diplomatic efforts by France, which on Thursday submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for an end to hostilities in Aleppo and access for humanitarian aid.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault was in Washington on Friday for talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry, the French foreign affairs ministry said, a day after he met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
In a joint press conference with Lavrov, Ayrault said the “situation is grave and serious” in Aleppo.
Lavrov said Russia was “ready to work on this text” as long as it doesn’t contradict any other UN resolutions or US-Russia ceasefire agreements.
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura appealed directly Thursday to Russia and the Syrian regime to bring an end to the fighting in the northern city.
“Look me in the eyes, are you really ready to continue this level of fighting, using those type of weapons, and destroy eastern Aleppo with 275,000 people, for the sake of killing 900 al-Nusra fighters?” he asked.
De Mistura also pleaded with fighters from al-Nusra Front — an al Qaeda affiliate now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham — to leave Aleppo with their weapons and offered personally to escort them out.
According to Russia’s state-run Sputnik News, participants in the closed-door UNSC meeting Friday are expected to discuss that proposal by de Mistura.
Russia warns against missile strikes
On Thursday, Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov warned against any missile or air strikes on the territory under control of the Syrian government, saying these would pose an “obvious threat to the Russian military.”
In his briefing, Konashenkov referenced “leaks” in Western media suggesting that the United States was considering possible strikes against Syrian troops, saying such leaks “often prove to be a preface to real action.”
“Russian S-300, S-400 air defense systems deployed in Syria’s Hmeymim and Tartus have combat ranges that may surprise any unidentified airborne targets,” Konashenkov said, according to state media and a statement posted on the ministry’s Facebook page.
“Operators of Russian air defense systems won’t have time to identify the origin of airstrikes, and the response will be immediate. Any illusions about ‘invisible’ jets will inevitably be crushed by disappointing reality.”
Russia has brought an additional, more advanced anti-aircraft and anti-missile system into Syria, a US official told CNN earlier this week.
The system, a newer, modified version of the S-300VM, also known as the SA-23, expands Russia’s anti-air capability in northwest Syria significantly.
The US announced Monday it was “suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia” over the cessation of hostilities in Syria, but said it would continue to pursue peace through multilateral channels.
Regime gains in eastern Aleppo
Regime forces took a key part of the rebel-held east of Aleppo on Thursday after weeks of bombardment, gaining control of part of Bustan al-Basha, Syrian state media and a UK-based monitoring group said.
The district is located on the front line between rebel-held eastern Aleppo and government-held areas in the center and west of the city. It is the first time the government has made gains in that neighborhood since losing the area to rebels three years ago, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The Assad regime has long warned that it will retake the whole of the northern city that has become the focal point of Syria’s devastating five-year civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of people remain, and are still in desperate need of aid. The regime already controls some parts of the city, mostly in the west.