Syrian Leader Says U.N. Cease-Fire Proposal Is Worth Considering
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Version 0 of 1. BEIRUT, Lebanon — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said Monday that a United Nations proposal for a local cease-fire in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, was worth considering. It was Mr. Assad’s first response to the idea floated recently by the new United Nations envoy to Syria. The envoy, Staffan de Mistura, has suggested “freezing” the conflict in Aleppo as a way of calming the Syrian conflict, aiding the fight against the extremist Islamic State militant group and advancing what has so far been a fruitless quest for a political solution. The modesty of the Aleppo proposal — halting the fighting in just one corner of a chaotic battlefield — reflects how the United Nations has scaled back its goals and expectations after more than three years of a conflict that has killed more than 150,000 people, displaced 6.5 million people inside Syria and driven more than three million others from the country. Yet even a local cease-fire in Aleppo would be a challenge, given the fragmentation of insurgent groups there as well as recent advances by government troops that have made some insurgents skeptical that Mr. Assad would be interested. Infighting pits the most radical groups, the Nusra Front and the Islamic State, against less extreme groups that have failed to unite effectively. And throughout the conflict, Mr. Assad has publicly embraced, in general terms, every international peace initiative but maneuvered to undermine or ignore them or focus only on the parts he agrees with. Local cease-fires have a vexed history in the conflict. They have been attempted in numerous areas, including many of the embattled rebel-held suburbs of Damascus and in the central city of Homs. On one hand, they reflect a genuine desire on the part of many Syrians on all sides to see an end to the carnage, and they have in some places allowed for an increase in the delivery of humanitarian aid. On the other hand, the truces have been criticized by government opponents and many in the international aid community for being agreed to under duress by rebellious communities that are facing starvation or obliteration from government forces. |