U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry urged Russia Friday to implement a ceasefire in Syria, saying its bombing
campaign was killing women and children in large numbers and “has to stop.”
“Russia
has indicated to me very directly they are prepared to do a ceasefire,” Kerry
told reporters, fresh from a trip to Europe focused on resolving the five-year
Syrian conflict. “The Iranians confirmed in London just a day and a half ago
they will support a ceasefire now.”
“We
will have a much better sense in the next few days of how serious each party
is,” added Kerry, a day after he implicitly blamed Russia’s bombing campaign
against the Syrian opposition for the collapse of peace talks in Geneva this
week.
Kerry blamed
the Russian military of using “dumb bombs.”
“They are not precision bombs, and there are civilians,
including women and children, being killed in large numbers as a consequence,”
he said, during a joint news conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel
Santos.
Russian planes are also targeting hospitals and returning to bomb people
rescuing those wounded in earlier air strikes, he added.
“This
has to stop”, Kerry said.
“The
Russians have made some constructive ideas about how a ceasefire in fact could
be implemented,” he added. “But if it’s just talk for the sake of talk in order
to continue the bombing, nobody is going to accept that.”
No comments:
Post a Comment