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Syria Cease-Fire Focus of US, European Diplomatic Talks in London

by VOA News

   The top U.S. diplomat is meeting with Washington's European allies in
   London Sunday to discuss Syria. John Kerry is meeting with the group to
   brainstorm ideas about ending the Syrian conflict, now in its sixth
   year.

   He said a meeting in Switzerland with his Russian counterpart, Sergei
   Lavrov, and several Middle Eastern countries Saturday had produced
   "several ideas that need to be quickly followed up," but he did not
   elaborate.

   The talks in Lausanne opened less than two weeks after Washington
   suspended bilateral talks with Moscow following the collapse of a shaky
   cease-fire in the divided city of Aleppo. Kerry told reporters that
   negotiators were "working very hard" to reach a cease-fire agreement in
   the war-torn city.

   The United States and its coalition partners accuse the Syrian
   government of President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies of a
   deadly and indiscriminate bombing campaign in rebel-held eastern
   Aleppo.

   Monitors say Russian and Syrian airstrikes and artillery have killed
   hundreds of civilians in the city and cut off more than 250,000 others
   from critically needed supplies since September.

   For its part, Russian diplomats insist the strikes are targeting
   extremists. They have repeatedly blamed Washington for failing to
   separate extremist fighters from the larger rebel fighting force and
   from the city's civilian population.

   On Saturday, Syrian opposition forces backed by Turkish airstrikes and
   armor launched an offensive in northern Syria to wrest control of a key
   border town from Islamic State extremists.

   Dabiq, 10 kilometers from the Turkish border, is cited in apocalyptic
   Sunni prophecy as the site of an end-of-times battle between Muslims
   and their "Roman" enemies. Islamic State named its online magazine
   after the town in 2014.

   Monitors from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
   said the force seized several strategic areas near the town Saturday.
   Heavy shelling was reported as the force prepared for battle less than
   two kilometers from the center of the fortified town.

   Turkey launched unprecedented cross-border strikes against IS
   strongholds on August 24, just days after linking IS fighters to a
   suicide bombing at a wedding in the nearby Turkish city of Gaziantep
   that killed 51 people. At the time, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut
   Cavusoglu said the Syrian frontier must be "completely cleansed" of
   Islamic State.

   Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Saturday to declare "a
   terror-free safe zone of 5,000 [square] kilometers," a border area that
   would include territory already captured in the offensive.