Tag Archives: United Nations

After missile tests, U.N. urges Iran to act with restraint

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has reacted to Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests by urging Tehran to act with moderation and restraint and to avoid increasing regional tensions, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Thursday.

“In the current political atmosphere in the Middle East region, and so soon after the positive news of the lifting of sanctions against Iran, the secretary-general calls … Iran to act with moderation, caution and the good sense not to increase tensions through hasty actions,” Dujarric told reporters.

A series of ballistic missile tests this week conducted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard units drew international concern. The United States, France and other countries said that if confirmed, of launches nuclear-capable ballistic missiles would be a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Dujarric noted that it is up to the 15-nation council to examine issues related to resolution 2231, which calls upon Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

The United States has said Iran’s missile tests do not violate the terms of an historic nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers, which resolution 2231, adopted in July 2015, endorsed. The U.N. missile restrictions and an arms embargo on Iran are not technically part of the nuclear agreement.

Council diplomats say they will first await confirmation from national intelligence agencies about whether the missiles Iran has fired were nuclear-capable. They also say that Russia and China, which opposed the continuation of restrictions on Iran’s missile program, would likely block council action.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the tests were not in violation of the nuclear agreement, which led to lifting of sanctions in January.

Western diplomats say resolution 2231, which “calls upon” Iran to refrain from certain ballistic missile activity, offers no green light for nuclear-capable missile launches by Tehran and is therefore a clear ban.

However, they acknowledge that Russia, China and Iran likely interpret that language as an appeal to Iran to voluntarily refrain from missile activity. Tehran has also said that none of its missiles are designed to carry nuclear weapons.

While no new U.N. sanctions may be imminent, Western diplomats say that the United States and some of its allies could take additional punitive action in the form of unilateral national sanctions against Iran over the latest missile launches, something Washington has done previously.

When U.N. sanctions on Iran were lifted in January, the Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee was shut down. But council diplomats said they expect the former chair of that now-defunct committee, Spain, will take on the task of overseeing the monitoring of Tehran’s compliance with resolution 2231.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau, editing by Michelle Nichols and Alan Crosby)

Key powers mulling possibility of federal division of Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Major powers close to U.N.-brokered peace talks on Syria are discussing the possibility of a federal division of the war-torn country that would maintain its unity as a single state while granting broad autonomy to regional authorities, diplomats said.

The resumption of Geneva peace talks is coinciding with the fifth anniversary of a conflict that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad before descending into a multi-sided civil war that has drawn in foreign governments and allowed the growth of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.

Fighting in Syria has slowed considerably since a fragile “cessation of hostilities agreement” brokered by the United States and Russia came into force almost two weeks ago. But an actual peace deal and proper ceasefire remain elusive.

As the United Nations’ peace mediator Staffan de Mistura prepares to meet with delegations from the Syrian government and opposition, one of the ideas receiving serious attention at the moment is a possible federal division of Syria.

Neither the opposition nor government has confirmed its participation in the latest round of peace talks in Switzerland.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.N. Security Council diplomat said some major Western powers, not only Russia, have also been considering the possibility of a federal structure for Syria and have passed on ideas to de Mistura.

“While insisting on retaining the territorial integrity of Syria, so continuing to keep it as a single country, of course there are all sorts of different models of a federal structure that would, in some models, have a very, very loose center and a lot of autonomy for different regions,” the diplomat said.

He offered no details about the models of a federal division of authority that could be applied to Syria. Another council diplomat confirmed the remarks.

OPPOSITION DISLIKES FEDERALISM

The biggest sticking point in the peace talks remains the fate of Assad, who Western and Gulf Arab governments insist must go at the end of a transition period envisioned under a roadmap hammered out in Vienna last year by major powers. Assad’s backers Russia and Iran say Syrians themselves must decide.

After five years of civil war that has killed 250,000 people and driven some 11 million from their homes, Syria’s territory is already effectively split between various parties, including the government and its allies, Western-backed Kurds, opposition groups and Islamic State militants.

This week, Syria’s Saudi Arabian-backed opposition rejected a suggestion by Russia, which like Iran supports Assad’s government and has intervened militarily on its side, that the peace talks could agree a federal structure for the country.

“Any mention of this federalism or something which might present a direction for dividing Syria is not acceptable at all. We have agreed we will expand non-central government in a future Syria, but not any kind of federalism or division,” Syrian opposition coordinator Riad Hijab said.

But the idea of federalism for Syria has not been ruled out. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, de Mistura said “all Syrians have rejected division (of Syria) and federalism can be discussed at the negotiations.”

In a September interview Assad did not rule out the idea of federalism when asked about it, but said any change must be a result of dialogue among Syrians and a referendum to introduce the necessary changes to the constitution.

“From our side, when the Syrian people are ready to move in a certain direction, we will naturally agree to this,” he said at the time.

The co-leader of Syrian Kurdish PYD party, which exercises wide influence over Kurdish areas of Syria, has made clear the PYD was open to the idea.

“What you call it isn’t important,” PYD’s Saleh Muslim told Reuters on Tuesday. “We have said over and over again that we want a decentralized Syria – call it administrations, call it federalism – everything is possible.”

The next round of Syria peace talks is not expected to run beyond March 24. After that round ends, there is expected to be a break of a week or 10 days before they resume.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington and Tom Perry in Beirut and Tom Miles in Geneva; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Syria opposition sees fewer truce breaches, U.N. prepares talks

BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – The Syrian opposition said on Wednesday there had been fewer breaches of a truce agreement by the government and its allies in the past day as a U.N. envoy unveiled plans to resume peace talks next week.

The “cessation of hostilities agreement” brokered by the United States and Russia has slowed the war considerably despite accusations of violations on all sides, preparing the ground for talks which the United Nations plans to convene in Geneva.

The talks will coincide with the fifth anniversary of a conflict that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad before descending into a multi-sided war that has drawn in foreign governments and allowed the growth of Islamic State.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said he planned to launch substantive peace talks on Monday, focusing on issues of Syria’s future governance, elections within 18 months, and a new constitution.

While the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) has yet to declare whether it will attend, spokesman Salem al-Muslat said it was positive that the talks would “start … with discussion of the matter of political transition”.

He said the HNC would announce its decision very soon.

The Syrian government, its position strengthened by more than five months of Russian air strikes, has also yet to say whether it will attend. There was no immediate response from Damascus to de Mistura’s remarks. The Syrian foreign minister is due to give a news conference on Saturday at noon.

Peace talks convened in Geneva two years ago collapsed as the sides’ were unable to agree an agenda: Damascus wanted a focus on fighting terrorism – the term it uses for the rebellion – while the opposition wanted talks on transitional government.

TALKS ABORTED

De Mistura aborted a previous attempt to hold talks on Feb. 3 and urged countries in the International Syria Support Group, led by the United States and Russia, to do more preparatory work.

The result was the cessation of hostilities which Western governments say has largely held since it came into effect on Feb. 27. It has been accompanied by more aid deliveries to opposition areas besieged by government forces, though fighting has continued in some important areas of northwestern Syria.

Rebel groups fighting to topple Assad had initially said they would support a two-week halt to the fighting. De Mistura said on Wednesday however that it was an “open-ended concept”.

The next round of talks would not run beyond March 24. There would then be a break of a week or 10 days before resuming.

Asked if the talks could be delayed further from an original start date of March 7, de Mistura said the format gave him a lot of flexibility.

Jan Egeland, who chairs the Syria humanitarian task force, said the United Nations had delivered aid to 10 of 18 besieged areas across the country in the last four weeks, and was working to overcome obstacles and reach remaining areas.

The truce agreement, accepted by Assad’s government and many of his enemies, was the first of its kind in a war that has killed more than 250,000 people and caused a major refugee crisis.

The agreement has not been directly signed by the warring parties and is less binding than a formal ceasefire. It does not cover Islamic State or the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, whose fighters are deployed in western Syria in close proximity to rebel groups that have agreed to cease fire.

Russia says it has recorded opposition violations including supplies of weapons via Turkey to rebels in Syria.

FEWER VIOLATIONS

Muslat of the HNC said: “The violations of the truce were great at the start, but yesterday they were much fewer. There are perhaps some positive matters that we are seeing.”

Speaking to Reuters, he said a government blockade of the Damascus suburb of Daraya must be lifted in order to “pave the way to the start of negotiations”. He added this was not a condition for the attending talks but a humanitarian requirement.

Despite the relative success of the cessation of hostilities, the peace talks face great challenges, including the question of Assad’s future.

The opposition says Assad must be removed from power at the start of a transition, while some of his Western enemies have backed away from that position, saying he must go at some point.

Russia has said that the matter should not be predetermined and Syrians should be left to choose. Assad has meanwhile ruled out anything that contravene the constitution, including the idea of a transitional governing body sought by the opposition.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-JubeIr reiterated his government’s tough line on Assad, who has also been boosted by Iranian military support. Saudi Arabia, which is in conflict with Iran across the region, has been a major sponsor of the Syrian insurgency.

“The choice for Bashar al-Assad is to either leave through a political process or the Syrian people will continue to fight until militarily they oust him,” Jubeir said.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneval; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

U.N. team calls destruction in Iraq’s Ramadi ‘staggering’

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Destruction in Ramadi is “staggering” and worse than anywhere else in Iraq, a U.N. team concluded this week after making the first assessment visit to the city since its recapture from Islamic State.

It said the main hospital and train station had both been destroyed, along with thousands of other buildings. Local officials told the UN team 64 bridges and much of the electricity grid had been ruined.

Iraqi forces declared victory over the jihadist group in Ramadi in December and has since cleared most of the western Iraqi city. Islamic State fighters still hold pockets in the northern and eastern outskirts.

Its recovery boosted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in his campaign to oust the militants from their northern stronghold of Mosul later this year.

But more than six months of fighting shattered most infrastructure and leveled many homes in Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital where around half a million people once lived.

The fighting saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

“The destruction the team has found in Ramadi is worse than any other part of Iraq. It is staggering,” said Lise Grande, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in Iraq.

The two-day assessment found that nearly every building had been damaged or destroyed in frontline areas. In other districts, one in three or four buildings were damaged, it said.

U.N. analysis of satellite imagery last month showed nearly 5,700 buildings in Ramadi and its outskirts had been damaged since mid-2014, with almost 2,000 completely destroyed.

Grande said it was too early to say how much time and money it would take to rebuild.

The cash-strapped government in Baghdad is appealing to international donors to help the city, the largest retaken from Islamic State. It must first clear bombs planted by the militants in streets and buildings – an effort which also requires funding it lacks.

The assessment team said the greatest concentration of such explosives was reported in south-central Ramadi.

The United Nations is working with local authorities on plans to rebuild health, water and energy infrastructure.

The U.N. team said a water plant in central Ramadi could probably be repaired quickly.

It said it had identified four potential relocation sites for returning civilians. Iraq’s central government has yet to give the all-clear for the return of residents.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Andrew Roche)

North Korea fires projectiles after new U.N. sanctions

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea fired several short-range projectiles into the sea on Thursday, hours after the U.N. Security Council voted to impose tough new sanctions on the isolated state and the South Korean president vowed to end Pyongyang’s “tyranny.”

The firing escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula, which have been high since North Korea recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, and set the South’s military on a heightened alert.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said it was trying to determine if the projectiles, launched at 10 a.m. from the North’s east coast, were short-range missiles or artillery fire.

The firing came after the U.N. Security Council passed a unanimous resolution on Wednesday dramatically expanding sanctions on North Korea following its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said North Korea’s action showed it had not taken the proper lesson from the latest round of sanctions.

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said Pyongyang should “refrain from provocative actions that aggravate tensions and instead focus on fulfilling its international obligations,” while a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said China hoped all parties could refrain from actions that escalate tension.

Japan’s U.N. ambassador, Motohide Yoshikawa, said the firing was North Korea’s reaction to the latest sanctions and, “They may do something more.”

South Korean President Park Geun-hye welcomed the tougher Security Council sanctions and repeated a call for North Korea to change its behavior.

“We will cooperate with the world to make the North Korean regime abandon its reckless nuclear development and end tyranny that oppresses freedom and human rights of our brethren in the North,” Park said at a Christian prayer meeting.

Park has been tough in her response to the North’s recent actions, moving from her earlier self-described “trustpolitik.”

Last month, Seoul suspended the operation of a jointly run factory project with North Korea that had been the rivals’ last remaining venue for regular interaction.

On Thursday, South Korea adopted a long-delayed security law to set up an anti-espionage unit and another law aimed at improving human rights in North Korea.

In its latest barrage of insults against South Korea’s leader, North Korea’s official media carried a commentary on Wednesday likening Park to an “ugly female bat,” fated to “die in the dreary cave, its body hanging down.”

(Additional reporting by Jessica Macy Yu in BEIJING David Brunnstrom in WASHINGTON and Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau at the UNITED NATIONS; Editing by Alex Richardson and Bill Trott)

EU considers more North Korea sanctions after U.N. vote, diplomats say

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is considering additional measures against North Korea following the approval of harsh new sanctions by the U.N. Security Council in order to show solidarity with South Korea and Japan, both major trade partners, diplomats said.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has welcomed Wednesday’s U.N. unanimous vote to expand existing sanctions following North Korea’s latest nuclear test and rocket launch, saying the bloc would update its sanctions regime.

“There is scope for the European Union to adopt additional autonomous restrictive measures to complement and reinforce the new U.N. measures,” said a diplomatic note seen by Reuters on the latest discussions.

Germany, France, Spain and Poland want to see what more the bloc can do in areas such as finance and insurance, as well as hitting more North Koreans with asset freezes.

Germany, one of seven EU member states to have an embassy in Pyongyang, also wants better monitoring of the “non-diplomatic” activities of North Korean envoys, EU diplomats said.

While far from Europe, North Korea is a concern to NATO and to the EU’s Asian trade partners.

“This is about supporting our allies Japan and South Korea, who are directly threatened by North Korea’s aggression,” said one EU diplomat involved in the discussions on further measures.

The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, which are both in range of North Korea’s ballistic missiles, have phoned Mogherini in recent weeks to urge maximum pressure on Pyongyang.

But the EU’s leverage over the isolated communist state is limited because Germany, Sweden and others are unwilling to cut diplomatic ties. Sweden, present in Pyongyang since the 1970s, is among those providing humanitarian aid to North Koreans.

Given that the United States says the new United Nations sanctions go further than any other U.N. sanctions regime in two decades, the EU’s measures, once updated, also leave little room to go further and new steps still need to be discussed.

Trade between the 28-nation European Union and North Korea fell to just 34 million euros in 2014 from more than 300 million euros a decade ago.

EU foreign ministers have reinforced their sanctions several times in recent years to include asset freezes and bans on financing and the delivery of banknotes.

EU countries also cannot export arms or metals used in ballistic missile systems and are banned from selling gold, diamonds and luxury goods to North Korea. Joint ventures are outlawed.

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

U.N. imposes harsh new sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program

By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea faces harsh new U.N. sanctions to starve it of money for its nuclear weapons program following a unanimous Security Council vote on Wednesday on a resolution drafted by the United States and Pyongyang’s ally China.

The resolution, which dramatically expands existing sanctions, follows North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a Feb. 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the sanctions go further than any U.N. sanctions regime in two decades and aim to cut off funds for North Korea’s nuclear and other banned weapons programs.

All cargo going to and from North Korea must now be inspected and North Korean trade representatives in Syria, Iran and Vietnam are among 16 individuals added to a U.N. blacklist, along with 12 North Korean entities.

Previously states only had to inspect such shipments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods.

“Virtually all of the DPRK’s (North Korea) resources are channeled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction,” Power told the council after the vote, adding that the cargo inspection provisions are “hugely significant.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the 15-nation council’s move, saying in a statement that Pyongyang “must return to full compliance with its international obligations.”

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its four nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.

After nearly two months of bilateral negotiations that at one point involved U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, China agreed to support the unusually tough measures intended to persuade its close ally to abandon its atomic weapons program.

China’s Ambassador Liu Jieyi called for a return to dialogue, saying: “Today’s adoption should be a new starting point and a paving stone for political settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.”

However, he reiterated Beijing’s concerns about the possible deployment of an advanced U.S. missile system in South Korea.

“At this moment all parties concerned should avoid actions that will further aggravate tension on the ground,” he said. “China opposes the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system … because such an action harms the strategic and security interests of China and other countries of the region.”

He was referring to the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

There was no immediate reaction from the North Korean U.N. mission. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday the proposed sanctions were “a wanton infringement on (North Korea’s) sovereignty and grave challenge to it.”

Shortly after the U.N. move, the U.S. Treasury Department said it was blacklisting two entities and 10 individuals for ties to North Korea’s government and its banned weapons programs, and said the State Department was also blacklisting three entities and two individuals for similar reasons.

The new U.N. sanctions close a gap in the U.N. arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports.

The Security Council’s list of explicitly banned luxury goods has been expanded to include luxury watches, aquatic recreational vehicles, snowmobiles worth more than $2,000, lead crystal items and recreational sports equipment.

There is also an unprecedented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capabilities of its armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes.

The new U.N. measures also blacklist 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company (OMM).

Added to the U.N. sanctions list was the National Aerospace Development Agency, or NADA, the body responsible for February’s rocket launch.

Newly blacklisted individuals include a senior official in North Korea’s long-range missile program, senior officials at NADA, officials for Tanchon Commercial Bank in Syria and Vietnam, and Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID) representatives in Iran and Syria.

An earlier draft would have blacklisted 17 individuals but the proposed designation of a KOMID representative in Russia was dropped from the final version of the resolution.

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

South Korea demands more sanctions on ‘serial offender’ North

By Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – South Korea’s foreign minister called on the U.N. Security Council to expand sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday to punish what he called an escalating and increasingly threatening nuclear program.

Yun Byung-se called North Korea a “serial offender” and denounced Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test and latest long-range missile launch, carried out in January and February.

North Korea’s Ambassador Se Pyong So said his country’s nuclear program was designed to ensure peace on the divided Korean peninsula, and warned that more sanctions would bring a “tougher reaction”.

Both men addressed the U.N.-backed Conference on Disarmament in Geneva hours before major powers were scheduled to vote at the U.N. Security Council across the Atlantic on a resolution to expand sanctions on North Korea.

The United States also condemned Pyongyang’s actions.

“The international community stands united in its firm opposition to the DPRK’s development and possession of nuclear weapons,” Christopher Buck, deputy U.S. disarmament ambassador, told the Geneva talks.

“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.”

LANDMARK RESOLUTION

After nearly two months of bilateral negotiations, China last month agreed to support new measures in the Security Council to try and persuade its ally North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons program.

Pyongyang has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.

“It’s no wonder that the Security Council will very soon put up a landmark resolution with the strongest ever non-military sanction measures in seven decades of U.N. history,” South Korea’s Yun said.

The credibility of the nuclear non-proliferation regime needed to be protected, he added.

“Even at this moment, Pyongyang is accelerating its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities from nuclear bombs and hydrogen bombs to ICBMs and SLBMs,” he said referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

“We have heard Pyongyang officially state its intention not only to further develop its nuclear weapons and missiles but also to use them.”

Japan’s parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs, Masakazu Hamachi, said North Korea’s actions had undermined the security of Northeast Asia and the rest of the world.

North Korea’s envoy retorted that the nuclear program was “not directed to harm the fellow countryman but to protect peace on the Korean Peninsula and security in the region from the U.S. vicious nuclear war scenario.”

“The more sanctions will bring about tougher reaction,” So said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens and John Stonestreet)

U.N. to restart Syria peace talks on March 9

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations will delay the next round of Syria peace talks by two days to allow the cessation of hostilities in force since Saturday to take hold, U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said.

International observers have acknowledged violations of the agreement intended to halt nearly five years of fighting while reporting that the level of violence has decreased considerably.

“We are delaying it to the afternoon of (March) 9th for logistical and technical reasons and also for the ceasefire to better settle down,” de Mistura told Reuters on Tuesday. The talks had been penciled in for March 7.

The cessation of hostilities was “a glimmer of hope”, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said, although he accused the opposition of violating the agreement.

The opposition in turn says the Syrian government has breached the fragile truce by repeatedly attacking its positions, which the government denies.

“We will play our part to make the whole thing work,” Assad told Germany’s ARD television network, adding that the Syrian army had not reacted to truce violations in order to give the agreement a chance.

“The terrorists have breached the deal from the first day. We as the Syrian army are refraining from responding in order to give a chance to sustain the agreement. But in the end there are limits and it all depends on the other side,” Assad said.

The cessation of hostilities agreement, drawn up by the United States and Russia, is seen by the U.N. as an opportunity to revive peace talks which collapsed before they had even started a month ago in Geneva.

It also hopes the truce will allow humanitarian aid to be sent into besieged areas where manySyrians are living in dire conditions.

However, the opposition said it had yet to be officially informed of a new round of talks on March 9, insisting that no serious discussions can begin before detainees are freed and blockades are lifted.

Riad Nassan Agha, a member of the High Negotiations Committee, told Reuters the opposition would study the call for talks based on developments on the ground, adding that it heard of the March 9 date only through the media.

NEGOTIATING TABLE

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was an urgent need to implement the agreement and for the warring parties to return to the negotiating table, a U.N. statement said.

“They agreed on the importance of urgently moving forward simultaneously on implementing the cessation of hostilities agreement, providing vital humanitarian assistance to civilians, and returning to political negotiations,” the statement said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that while efforts were being made to track down alleged violations of the cessation of hostilities, there was currently no evidence to suggest they would destabilize the fragile peace.

In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Lavrov and Kerry reaffirmed the importance of coordination, chiefly military, between Moscow and Washington to strengthen the truce, the Russian foreign ministry reported.

De Mistura expected to see attempts to disrupt the ceasefire, saying these needed to be contained to avoid them spreading and undermining the credibility of the truce.

“We don’t want discussions in Geneva to become a discussion about infringements or not of the ceasefire, we want them to actually address the core of everything,” he said in an interview.

De Mistura wants the Syrian sides to focus on constitutional reform, governance, and hopes elections can be held in 18 months. Prisoner releases would also be “very much up front on the agenda”, he said.

Syria‘s Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Hussam Aala, said his government was cooperating over aid deliveries, including to rebel-led areas. It was facilitating “access to humanitarian aid to those who need it without discrimination, between the besieged zones or zones infiltrated by terrorists”.

However, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, he also accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of financing jihadist rebel groups including the Nusra Front, which is linked to al Qaeda, and also rejected criticism from France.

JIHADIST GROUPS

The agreement does not include Islamic State or the Nusra Front, and Assad and his Russian backers have made clear they intend to keep attacking them.

The Saudi-backed “moderate” opposition says that because some of their fighters are in areas alongside Nusra, they fear being targeted too.

The Russian Defence Ministry said it was refraining from striking areas where the “moderate opposition” was respecting the ceasefire agreement, Interfax news agency reported.

A total of 15 ceasefire violations have been registered in Syria in the past 24 hours, Interfax quoted the Russian military as saying. The U.S. State Department, however, said it had not received any reports of “significant” violations.

The Syrian military denied it was responsible for any violations and said “terrorist groups”, the term it uses to describe its enemies, were to blame. Operations against Islamic State – also known as Daesh – and the Nusra Front were going ahead.

“The combat operations that the Syrian Arab Army is carrying out against Daesh and Nusra are continuing according to the plans of the military command,” a Syrian military source said.

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly and Tom Perry; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Peter Millership, Pravin Char and David Stamp)

Europe on cusp of self-induced humanitarian crisis, UNHCR says

GENEVA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The build-up of thousands of migrants and refugees on Greece’s northern borders is fast turning into a humanitarian disaster, the United Nations said on Tuesday as the European Union prepared to offer more financial aid.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said clashes at Greece’s border with Macedonia on Monday – when migrants battered down a gate and were tear-gassed – simply underlined the urgency with which the EU needed to act on the crisis.

But Austria – which last month limited the number of migrants it lets through to 3,200 a day – stuck to its position that it did not want to become an overcrowded waiting room for thousands wanting to make it further north.

Croatia, which is also on what is now the well-trodden migrants route northwards from Greece, said it might deploy its armed forces to help police control flows.

But near Idomeni, on the Greek-Macedonian border itself, a tent city mushroomed, prompting some despair among those trapped there. “Macedonian police put us here, the Greeks don’t want us back,” Yase Qued, a 16-year-old from Afghanistan, told Reuters.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for better planning and accommodation for at least 24,000 it said were stuck in Greece, including 8,500 at Idomeni.

“Europe is on the cusp of a largely self-induced humanitarian crisis,” U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing.

“The crowded conditions are leading to shortages of food, shelter, water and sanitation. As we all saw yesterday, tensions have been building, fuelling violence and playing into the hands of people smugglers,” he said.

Migrants have become stranded in Greece since Austria and other countries along the Balkans migration corridor imposed restrictions on their borders, limiting the numbers able to cross.

Police chiefs from Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, meeting in Belgrade, agreed to improve the system of joint registration of refugees to unblock gridlocks in Greece.

The burgeoning crisis adds to last year’s chaos when more than a million migrants and refugees arrived in the EU, many fleeing the war in Syria and walking from Turkey northwards.

Some 130,000 have reached the continent so far in 2016.

CRISIS AID

The European Commission, the EU executive, said it would float a plan on Wednesday to offer emergency financial aid for humanitarian crises inside the 28-nation bloc – comparable with operations it has launched elsewhere in the world.

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker spoke to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday and European Council President Donald Tusk was on a visit to Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey.

Tusk’s tour comes ahead of a special European Union summit on the crisis next Monday. Germany’s Merkel said television pictures of migrants desperate to make their way into western Europe via the Balkans drove home the urgency of the summit.

“The pictures show us clearly every day that there is a need for talks,” she said after meeting Croatian Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic in Berlin.

“We also naturally need to deal with the very difficult situation in Greece and see how we can fulfill what the (European) Commission demanded from us, namely to end the politics of waving people through and to return to the Schengen system as soon as possible and to the greatest possible extent.”

The difficulty of reaching agreement on an issue which goes to the heart of public fears for security and safety in many countries was underlined by Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, who honed in on comments from German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere that suggested he thought Austria might wave through too many migrants.

“What is not acceptable is to say that they should definitely come and then the interior minister says he is against waving people through (to Germany),” Faymann told a news conference after a weekly cabinet meeting.

“Then how should they go to Germany?”

The UNHCR, meanwhile, urged all EU member states to reinforce their capacity to register and process asylum seekers through their national procedures as well as through an EU relocation scheme.

“Greece cannot manage this situation alone,” Edwards said.

Despite commitments to relocate 66,400 refugees from Greece, EU member states have so far pledged just 1,539 spaces and only 325 people actually have been relocated, he added.

(Additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas in Idomeni, Francois Murphy in Vienna, Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade, Paul Carrel in Berlin; Writing by Jeremy Gaunt; Editing by Mark Heinrich)