Moscow, Damascus ensured ceasefire in Syria on time - Russian Deputy Defense Minister
MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) - Russia and the Syrian government ensured establishment of a ceasefire regime on time, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said.
"Russian and the Syrian government ensured establishment of a ceasefire regime on time. The American partners managed to achieve a ceasefire observed only a part of the units of the so-called moderate opposition, while over 100 militant groups continued active hostilities," he told reporters on Friday.
Antonov said that in accordance with the joint statement on ceasefire in Syria Russia handed over to the U.S. a list of 47 units of the moderate opposition, which voiced the wish to cease fire, by February 26. He said that Moscow notified Washington on the areas of their operations and information on the presence of the units of Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIL terrorist groups [banned in Russia].
"In turn, the U.S. representatives handed over to Russia the lists of the opposition units. After verification of these lists in was established that two groups mentioned in them are fighting alongside ISIL and eight are included in Jabhat al-Nusra, which is an affiliate of Al Qaeda," he said.
"We received a joint map of the presence of the Jabhat al-Nusra militants in the various regions of Syria, which did not allow separating the moderate opposition from the terrorists," he said.
"Consequently, we were unable to document the borders of the areas held by the moderate opposition and separate it from the radical terrorist groups. In the following, it led to the issues of specific violators of ceasefire," he said.
Despite all the issues, the ceasefire regime was put in place on the entire territory of Syria from February 27 for the purpose of decreasing the level of violence and reduction in the number of victims among civilians, he said.
Owing to the Russian military, which worked on the site, the elders of 742 populated localities joined the ceasefire process, Antonov said. "A total of 69 units of the moderate opposition voiced their commitment to the ceasefire regime observance. In addition to that, development of the new Syrian Constitution draft was initiated with Russia's participation," he said.
"The U.S. representatives failed to convince the moderate opposition to forgo clearly unacceptable and ultimatum-like claims and the political process came to a deadlock as a result," he said.