Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that a new ceasefire deal in southern Syria was the result of the United States altering its stance and becoming more pragmatic about the situation there.

HAMBURG: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that a new ceasefire deal in southern Syria was the result of the United States altering its stance and becoming more pragmatic about the situation there.

Putin, speaking at a news conference at the G20 summit in Hamburg, was referring to a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" for southwestern Syria reached by the United States, Russia and Jordan on Friday. </s> Blasts kill dozens in Syria as U.S.-Russia truce talks make little progress

BEIRUT/HANGZHOU, China, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Explosions in government-controlled areas of Syria and a province held by Kurdish militia killed dozens on Monday, while the United States and Russia failed to make concrete progress towards a ceasefire.

Six explosions hit west of the capital Damascus, in the government-held cities of Homs and Tartous - which hosts a Russian military base - and the Kurdish-controlled northeastern province of Hasaka between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. (0500-0600 GMT), state media and a monitor said.

It was not clear if the blasts were linked and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.

The United States and Russia have been trying to broker a new truce after a cessation of hostilities agreed in February unravelled within weeks, with Washington accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of violating the pact.

Their efforts were complicated on Sunday as government forces and their allies again laid siege to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war which Assad is determined to fully recapture. His gains have relied heavily on Russian air support since September last year.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion of about 90 minutes on Monday about whether, and how, they could agree a deal, a senior U.S. administration official said.

Meeting at the G20 summit in China, they discussed getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the official said.

But in talks earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a ceasefire for the second time in two weeks, with U.S. officials stressing they would walk away if a pact could not be reached soon.

"If an agreement can be reached, we want to do so urgently, because of the humanitarian situation. However, we must ensure that it is an effective agreement," the official said.

Russia says it cannot agree to a deal unless opposition fighters, backed by the United States and Middle East allies, are separated from al Qaeda-linked militants they overlap with in some areas.

For Washington, the priority is stabilising Syria so as to destroy Islamic State, which controls territory both there and in neighbouring Iraq.

NATO Turkey ally on Sunday said rebels it was backing had gained control of all areas on its border that had been held by the jihadists, depriving the ultra-hardline Islamist group of its main route to the outside world.

The announcement came some 10 days after Turkey launched its first major military incursion into Syria since the start of the war in 2011, an operation aimed as much at preventing further Kurdish territorial gains as at driving back Islamic State.

Two of the explosions on Monday hit the Arzouna bridge area at the entrance to the Mediterranean city of Tartous, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and state news agency SANA said. Islamic State attacked Tartous in May.

The Observatory and a city hospital put the death toll at 35, including members of the Syrian military, and said the number was likely to rise.

Syrian state television said the first explosion was a car bomb and the second a suicide belt detonated as rescue workers arrived. The blasts hit during a summer festival at Tartous, whose beaches recently featured in a government tourism video.

A car bomb meanwhile struck Homs, a city around 80 km (50 miles) east of Tartous which has repeatedly been hit by bombings claimed by Islamic State. State media said three people were killed, while the Observatory said the explosion hit an army checkpoint and four officers were killed.

West of Damascus, there was an explosion near the town of al Saboura, killing one person and injuring three, according to a police commander quoted by state media.

A motorbike also exploded in the centre of the northeastern city of Hasaka, which is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia.

The Observatory said the blast killed three members of a YPG-affiliated security force known as the Asayish, and injured others. It said a percussion bomb also went off in the province's Qamishli city.

The Kurdish YPG militia, a critical part of the U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State, took almost complete control of Hasaka city in late August after a week of fighting with the government.

Islamic State confirmed that a blast in Hasaka took place but did not say whether its fighters were involved.

The YPG already controls swathes of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established de facto autonomy since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, much to the alarm of neighbouring Turkey.

Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey and fears the creation of a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria would fuel their separatist ambitions. (Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood) </s> A ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States took effect in Syria at sundown Monday, but there was deep scepticism over whether it would take hold.

The initial 48-hour truce entered into force at 7:00 pm local time (1600 GMT) across Syria except in areas held by jihadists like the Islamic State group.

Its fragility was underscored in the hours leading up to sundown, with opposition forces yet to formally sign on and President Bashar al-Assad vowing to retake the whole country from "terrorists".

The deal, announced Friday after marathon talks between Russia and the United States, has been billed as the best chance yet to halt the bloodshed in Syria's five-year civil war.

As well as bringing a temporary end to the fighting, it aims to provide crucial aid to hundreds of thousands of desperate civilians.

Just before the truce came into force, senior Russian military official Sergei Rudskoi said the ceasefire would cover all of Syria except "terrorist targets".

"Today from 1900 (local time) the cessation of hostilities is being resumed across all the territory of Syria," Rudskoi said at a briefing, adding that Russia would "continue to carry out strikes against terrorist targets."

Under the agreement, fighting will halt in areas not held by jihadists and aid deliveries to besieged areas will begin, with government and rebel forces ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access in particular to divided Aleppo city.

The ceasefire will be renewed every 48 hours and, if it holds for a week, Moscow and Washington will begin unprecedented joint targeting of jihadist forces.

World powers have thrown their weight behind this new deal after several rounds of peace efforts failed to end the conflict that has killed more than 290,000 people.

But Syria's opposition and rebels are deeply sceptical that Assad's regime will abide by the truce agreement, and demanded guarantees before endorsing a deal.

"We are asking for guarantees especially from the United States, which is a party to the agreement," Salem al-Muslet from the High Negotiations Committee, the main opposition umbrella group, told AFP Monday.

"We fear that Russia will classify all the Free Syrian Army (rebel factions) as terrorists," as it was unclear how the deal defined "terrorist groups", he said.

Rebel groups on Sunday sent a letter to the US saying they would "deal positively with the idea of the ceasefire" but listed several "concerns" and stopped short of a full endorsement.

"The clauses of the agreement that have been shared with us do not include any clear guarantees or monitoring mechanisms... or repercussions if there are truce violations," they said.

Ahmad al-Saoud, who heads the US-backed Division 13 rebel group which signed the letter, said they had received no response.

Just moments before the ceasefire came into force, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported that three people were killed in regime shelling in the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus.

Questions remain about how the ceasefire will apply in parts of Syria where the jihadist Fateh al-Sham Front, previously known as Al-Nusra Front, is present.

A crucial part of the deal calls for rebels to distance themselves from the group before joint US-Russian operations against it begin.

But Fateh al-Sham cooperates closely with many of Syria's rebels, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham faction, which on Sunday issued a scathing condemnation of the Russian-US deal.

In a message marking the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Ahrar al-Sham's deputy leader Ali al-Omar said Syria's "people cannot accept half-solutions".

Russia's deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told state-run news agency RIA Novosti that peace talks could resume within a month.

"I think that probably at the very beginning of October, (UN envoy Staffan) de Mistura should be inviting all parties" to talks, he said.

Syria's government and its allies including Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement have backed the truce.

But on Monday Assad made clear he was intent on recapturing all of Syria.

"The Syrian state is determined to recover every area from the terrorists," he said as he toured Daraya, a former rebel stronghold that surrendered last month after a four-year government siege.

"The armed forces are continuing their work, relentlessly and without hesitation, regardless of internal or external circumstances," he added.

The run-up to the truce has also seen a spike in violence, with at least 74 people killed in strikes on Aleppo and Idlib cities over the weekend.

Fresh raids hit Aleppo Monday, an AFP correspondent said, where residents have struggled to celebrate Eid amid shortages created by a renewed government siege.

Aleppo has been divided between rebels in the east and regime forces in the west since mid-2012.

In August, rebels broke a weeks-long regime siege of the east, but Assad loyalists restored the blockade on September 8.

"We hope there will be a ceasefire so that civilians can get a break," said east Aleppo resident Abu Abdullah. "Civilians have no hope any more." </s> HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, three U.S. officials said Friday as President Donald Trump held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The deal marks a new level of involvement for the U.S. in trying to resolve Syria’s civil war. Although details about the agreement and how it will be implemented weren’t immediately available, the cease-fire is set to take effect Sunday at noon Damascus time, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jordan and Israel also are part of the agreement, one of the officials said. The two U.S. allies both share a border with the southern part of Syria and have been concerned about violence from Syria’s civil war spilling over the border.

The deal is separate from “de-escalation zones” that were to be created under a deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran earlier this year. The U.S. was not a part of that deal. Follow-up talks this week in Astana, Kazakhstan, to finalize a cease-fire in those zones failed to reach agreement.

Previous cease-fires in Syria have collapsed or failed to reduce violence for long, and it was unclear whether this deal would be any better.

Earlier in the week, Syria’s military had said it was halting combat operations in the south of Syria for four days, in advance of a new round of Russia-sponsored talks in Astana. That move covered southern provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida. Syria’s government briefly extended that unilateral cease-fire, which is now set to expire Saturday — a day before the U.S. and Russian deal would take effect.

The new agreement to be announced Friday will be open-ended, one U.S. official said, describing it as part of broader U.S. discussions with Russia on trying to lower violence in the war-ravaged country. Officials said the U.S. and Russia were still working out the details as Trump and Putin concluded their more than two-hour meeting on Friday.

The U.S. and Russia have been backing opposing sides in Syria’s war, with Moscow supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad and Washington supporting rebels who have been fighting Assad. Both the U.S. and Russia oppose the Islamic State group in Syria.

The U.S. has been wary of letting Iran gain influence in Syria — a concern shared by Israel and Jordan, neither of which wants Iranian-aligned troops amassing near their territories. A U.S.-brokered deal could help the Trump administration retain more of a say over who fills the power vacuum left behind as the Islamic State is routed from additional territory in Syria.

Though U.S. and Russian officials had been discussing a potential deal for some time, it didn’t reach fruition until the run-up to Trump’s meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit in Germany, officials said.

Before Trump’s meeting with Putin — his first with the Russian leader — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that Syria’s civil war would be high on the agenda. Tillerson said in a statement before departing for Germany for the meeting that the U.S. remained open to cooperating with Russia through “joint mechanisms” to lower violence in Syria, potentially including no-fly zones.

“If our two countries work together to establish stability on the ground, it will lay a foundation for progress on the settlement of Syria’s political future,” Tillerson said on Wednesday.

Moscow reacted angrily when the U.S. downed a Syrian jet last week after it dropped bombs near the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces conducting operations against the Islamic State group. Russia warned its military would track aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition as potential targets over Syria and suspended a hotline intended to avoid midair incidents. </s> HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, three U.S. officials said Friday as President Donald Trump held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The deal marks a new level of involvement for the U.S. in trying to resolve Syria’s civil war. Although details about the agreement and how it will be implemented weren’t immediately available, the cease-fire is set to take effect Sunday at noon Damascus time, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jordan and Israel also are part of the agreement, one of the officials said. The two U.S. allies both share a border with the southern part of Syria and have been concerned about violence from Syria’s civil war spilling over the border.

The deal is separate from “de-escalation zones” that were to be created under a deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran earlier this year. The U.S. was not a part of that deal. Follow-up talks this week in Astana, Kazakhstan, to finalize a cease-fire in those zones failed to reach agreement.

Previous cease-fires in Syria have collapsed or failed to reduce violence for long, and it was unclear whether this deal would be any better.

Earlier in the week, Syria’s military had said it was halting combat operations in the south of Syria for four days, in advance of a new round of Russia-sponsored talks in Astana. That move covered southern provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida. Syria’s government briefly extended that unilateral cease-fire, which is now set to expire Saturday — a day before the U.S. and Russian deal would take effect.

The new agreement to be announced Friday will be open-ended, one U.S. official said, describing it as part of broader U.S. discussions with Russia on trying to lower violence in the war-ravaged country. Officials said the U.S. and Russia were still working out the details as Trump and Putin concluded their more than two-hour meeting on Friday.

The U.S. and Russia have been backing opposing sides in Syria’s war, with Moscow supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad and Washington supporting rebels who have been fighting Assad. Both the U.S. and Russia oppose the Islamic State group in Syria.

The U.S. has been wary of letting Iran gain influence in Syria — a concern shared by Israel and Jordan, neither of which wants Iranian-aligned troops amassing near their territories. A U.S.-brokered deal could help the Trump administration retain more of a say over who fills the power vacuum left behind as the Islamic State is routed from additional territory in Syria.

Though U.S. and Russian officials had been discussing a potential deal for some time, it didn’t reach fruition until the run-up to Trump’s meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit in Germany, officials said.

Before Trump’s meeting with Putin — his first with the Russian leader — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that Syria’s civil war would be high on the agenda. Tillerson said in a statement before departing for Germany for the meeting that the U.S. remained open to cooperating with Russia through “joint mechanisms” to lower violence in Syria, potentially including no-fly zones.

“If our two countries work together to establish stability on the ground, it will lay a foundation for progress on the settlement of Syria’s political future,” Tillerson said on Wednesday.

Moscow reacted angrily when the U.S. downed a Syrian jet last week after it dropped bombs near the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces conducting operations against the Islamic State group. Russia warned its military would track aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition as potential targets over Syria and suspended a hotline intended to avoid midair incidents.

On Twitter, reach Vivian Salama at https://twitter.com/vmsalama , Josh Lederman at https://twitter.com/joshledermanAP and Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC </s> (HAMBURG, Germany) — U.S. officials say the United States and Russia have reached an agreement for a cease-fire in southwest Syria.

The cease-fire is set to take effect July 9 at noon Damascus time. Word of the cease-fire has emerged as President Donald Trump is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The officials weren't authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The deal marks a new level of involvement for the U.S. in trying to resolve Syria's civil war.

A separate deal to create "de-escalation zones" was brokered Russia, Turkey and Iran, but not the U.S. Follow-up talks this week in Kazakhstan to finalize a cease-fire in those zones failed to reach a deal.

The U.S. and Russia have been backing opposing sides in Syria's war. </s> HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, three U.S. officials said Friday as President Donald Trump held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The deal marks a new level of involvement for the U.S. in trying to resolve Syria's civil war. Although details about the agreement and how it will be implemented weren't immediately available, the cease-fire is set to take effect Sunday at noon Damascus time, said the officials, who weren't authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jordan and Israel also are part of the agreement, one of the officials said. The two U.S. allies both share a border with the southern part of Syria and have been concerned about violence from Syria's civil war spilling over the border.

The deal is separate from "de-escalation zones" that were to be created under a deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran earlier this year. The U.S. was not a part of that deal. Follow-up talks this week in Kazakhstan to finalize a cease-fire in those zones failed to reach agreement.

The U.S. and Russia have been backing opposing sides in Syria's war, with Moscow supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad and Washington supporting rebels who have been fighting Assad. Both the U.S. and Russia oppose the Islamic State group in Syria.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Moscow: Russia President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced a nationwide ceasefire deal to come into effect across Syria from midnight and that the warring parties had agreed to sit down for peace talks.

The deal brokered by Russia and Turkey could represent a major breakthrough in nearly 6 years of war in Syria and comes a week after rebel resistance was crushed in the second city of Aleppo.

Although on opposing sides in the conflict, Turkey and Russia have been working intensively to find a ceasefire after the fall of Aleppo, in a process that conspicuously does not include the United States.

Putin said in televised comments that Damascus and the "main forces of the armed opposition" had inked the truce agreement and a document expressing a readiness to start peace talks.

"Several hours ago, the event occurred that we have not only been waiting for but been working so much to hasten," Putin said in a meeting with his defence and foreign ministers.

After the Kremlin announcement, Syria's army said it would halt all military operations from midnight, and the opposition National Coalition also said it backed the truce.

Putin also said he would reduce Moscow's military contingent in Syria, which has been flying a bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad since 2015.

The Kremlin strongman, however, said that Russia would continue to fight "terrorism" in the war-torn country and maintain its support for the government in Damascus.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the seven opposition groups, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham, that have signed up to the agreements after months of talks comprise some 62,000 fighters and control a large portion of territory in central and northern Syria.

He warned that any groups that did not abide by the ceasefire would be considered "terrorists" alongside the Islamic State group and the former Al-Qaeda affiliate previously known as Al-Nusra Front, now rebranded the Fateh al-Sham Front.

Putin's announcement of the deal came hours after Turkey's foreign minister said the potential truce could start by New Year.

The nationwide ceasefire follows the deal brokered by Turkey and Russia for Aleppo which allowed the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians.

Moscow and Ankara are now pushing for peace talks between Damascus and the rebels to start soon in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.

"Now we need to do everything for these agreements to come into force, for them to work, so that the negotiating teams that have been or are being formed promptly and as soon as possible arrive in Astana," Putin said.

Russia and Turkey have both said that the peace talks they will supervise are meant to supplement UN-backed peace efforts, rather than replace them entirely.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia, Turkey and Iran were currently organising for the talks to begin in Astana and pressing for other key international players to get involved.

Lavrov said Moscow would invite Egypt before trying to attract other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Jordan.

In a clear snub to US President Barack Obama, Russia's top diplomat said Moscow would look to get the team of President-elect Donald Trump in the mix when he takes power next month.

As its cooperation tightened with Moscow, Turkey stood conspicuously quiet as the regime, supported by Russia, took control last week of Aleppo, handing the rebels their biggest defeat in the civil war so far.

The victory was also a boost for Putin, who sent forces to Syria last year to bolster Assad in an unprecedented intervention.

Syria's conflict began with a 2011 uprising against Assad but quickly morphed into a complicated civil war that has now killed more than 310,000 people and forced millions more from their homes.

The conflict continued to rage as civilians were killed in regime strikes on Thursday, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP in Beirut.

The observatory said At least 15 civilians, including six children, were killed on Thursday in airstrikes and artillery fire on rebel-held territory near Syria's capital Damascus. </s> HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion on Monday about whether, and how, they could agree on a ceasefire deal in war-torn Syria, a senior U.S. administration official said.

Obama and Putin spent about 90 minutes in a "constructive" meeting about getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the official told reporters.

In talks earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a ceasefire for the second time in two weeks, with U.S. officials stressing they would walk away if a near-term pact could not be reached.

Obama and Putin did not get into the finer details of a deal, but made progress to clarify "the remaining gaps" and directed Kerry and Lavrov to meet as early as this week to keep working on a deal, the official told reporters.

"If an agreement can be reached, we want to do so urgently, because of the humanitarian situation. However, we must ensure that it is an effective agreement," the official said.

"If we cannot get the type of agreement we want, we will walk away from that effort."

A cessation of hostilities agreement brokered by Lavrov and Kerry in February unraveled within weeks, with Washington accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces of violating the pact.

State Department officials have declined to elaborate on what the sticking points are preventing a deal, though the U.S. official said the remaining differences revolved around how the plan would be implemented.

Russia has insisted that it cannot agree to a deal unless opposition fighters, backed by the United States and Middle East allies, are separated from al-Qaeda linked militants they overlap with in some areas.

Obama and Putin also discussed the conflict in Ukraine - a crisis that Obama had earlier discussed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

The White House wants to determine whether the Minsk ceasefire can be implemented beforeObama leaves office in January, or whether economic sanctions on Russia will need to be extended, the official said.
The United States, Russia and regional countries reach a ceasefire deal in southwestern Syria.