The agreement, announced Thursday after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, is the first initiative by the Trump administration in collaboration with Russia to bring some stability to war-torn Syria.
It followed weeks of secretive talks in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to address the buildup of Iranian-backed forces, in support of the Syrian government, near the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
The three brokering nations did not specify mechanisms to monitor or enforce the truce.
A resident and local opposition activist in Daraa, near the Jordanian border, reported calm in the opening minutes of the truce.
“There’s still a lot of anxiety,” said Ahmad al-Masalmeh. “We’ve entered the cease-fire but there are no mechanisms to enforce it. That’s what concerns people.”
Six years of fighting and siege have devastated Daraa, one of the first cities to see large protests against President Bashar Assad in 2011.
It remains contested by U.S.-backed rebels and Syrian government forces supported by Russia and Iran. Large swaths of the city have been reduced to rubble by government artillery and Russian air power.
The government maintains it is fighting against terrorist groups. The Al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee is one of the most potent factions fighting alongside rebels in Daraa.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would welcome a “genuine cease-fire” in southern Syria so long as it doesn’t enable Iran and its proxies to develop a military presence along the border.
The truce covers the Quneitra, Daraa, and Sweida provinces, where the government and the rebels are also fighting Islamic State militants, who are not included in the truce.
No cease-fire has lasted long in the six-year-old Syrian war.
In Syria the conservative government kills their own people with poison chemicals. In the United States conservatives prefer to neglect untreated disease, hunger, and small arms. Although it is nothing new, it is still hard to imagine why nations declare war on their little people citizens for fun and profit. It’s a conservative thing. I will never understand.
Edit addition: Armed priest in a Corvette goes bananas. Nothing we would want to distract our attention away from a lovely proxy war. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40547137
A case could be made that what happened in Flint, Michigan was a conservative government killing their own people with poison chemicals.
"Large swaths of the city have been reduced to rubble by government artillery and Russian air power."
This is how Russia is ‘protecting’ Syria, by reducing their cities to rubble.
I guess this makes sense, at least as much as the whole war in general.
Measuring accomplishments against the damage done is basically an impossibility.
If Russia, Iran and the US stayed out or strictly limited their involvement, would the situation be any worse?
With such disparate goals, there really is no singular solution that fits all.
Tyrants are the problem and they are either stripped of their power or they continue their tyranny, this is what they do.
In America, we have our own tin pot clown to deal with while the world turns, as if we needed more problems and confusion.
This will last only as long as Trump gets back to Washington and has to give Putin the bad news that Ryan and McConnell won’t budge on the Russian sanctions even a little bit with a Midterm election coming up.
Curses! Foiled again by a NYC hood. Putin really wasted his time nurturing this American traitor.
Putin and Trump: our next Nobel Peace Prize winners!