Russian Defense Ministry: 17 armed groups accept cessation of hostilities agreement

Moscow, SANA – Russian Defense Ministry announced suspending sorties on areas of armed groups for a day in support of the agreement on the cessation of hostilities adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council on Friday.

Chief of the main operations department of the Russian General Staff Sergey Rudskoy told reporters that the Russian air force has fully stopped airstrikes since Friday midnight Damascus time, pointing out that 17 armed groups have pledged to abide by the ceasefire.

Russia Today TV quoted Rudskoy as saying that “hotlines’ have been created to ensure the quick exchange of information between the Russian ceasefire coordinating center in Hmeimim, Syria and the US one in Amman, Jordan.”

The Russian Defense Ministry has also provided the US military with its current situation map in Syria, he said.

“One can see the regions where the peace process is on, and also the areas controlled by ISIS, Al-Nusra, or other armed groups,” the official added.

Rudskoy pointed out that if the agreement was breached, the Russian or the US side would separately or together work on alleviating tension according to the sort of the breach, pointing out that efforts are currently concentrated on delivering humanitarian aid to areas including in the cessation of hostilities.

The Russian official clarified that 2.5 tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered during the past two days in a number of areas that agreed to cease fighting actions in Lattakia and Homs.

Lieutenant-General Sergey Kuralenko, the head of Russia’s ceasefire headquarters in Hmeimim said that the most important thing is to cease fighting actions, clarifying that the agreement was applied in 43 areas and that three armed groups in the Eastern Ghouta, al-Tal and Daraya accepted the agreement during the last night.

The Russian military official said that he received about 167 calls and text messages last night and some 42 requests were applied to the Russian side in addition to 56 calls and messages of amnesty for those fighting in terrorist groups, clarifying that there was a prompt response to these requests while 48 other requests are pending until they are considered as well as 98 requests were delivered to the Syrian official bodies.

He pointed out that officers of the centers made 49 conversations with leaders of armed groups as preparations for signing the required documents for the cessation of fighting actions in 48 areas in Hama, Homs and Damascus are on, pointing out that the monitoring are done by 70 drones, in addition to information and text messages that reach the center.

Manal

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