Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was ready to prolong a unilateral ceasefire in Aleppo, after tough talks in Berlin with leaders of Germany and France.
Putin said he told the European leaders that Russia was “intending to extend as far as possible” a halt to its air raids in Syria’s second city, in order to allow civilians and militants to leave the devastated city.
A pause in Russian and Syrian strikes on Aleppo held for a second day Wednesday, ahead of the brief unilateral ceasefire that started Thursday morning.
Ahead of the talks in Berlin, Moscow announced it would prolong the truce from eight to 11 hours, and said Syrian and Russian warplanes were giving Aleppo a wide berth.
Ina news conference following the talks the Russian position on Syria, lamenting that little progress achieved in talks on the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian leader said he had talked “about the Russian side’s plans to extend the pause in delivering airstrikes [in Aleppo] for as long as possible, depending on the developments in this territory.”
Putin stressed that Moscow has been calling for the reinvigoration of work on a new Syrian constitution, which would be the first step toward a political transition in the war-torn country.
“I once again reminded our colleagues that Russia proposes to step up work in this sphere on devising and adopting a new constitution, on the basis of which preliminary election may be held and positions of all conflicting parties may be preliminarily coordinated,” Putin said.
Source: Agencies
