US Secretary of State John Kerry demanded on Wednesday that Russia and the Syrian government immediately halt flights over Syrian battle zones, in what he called a last chance to salvage a collapsing cease-fire and find a way “out of the carnage.”
An impassioned Kerry faced off with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the UN Security Council in New York, in an unusually heated televised showdown, saying the bombing of an aid convoy in Syria raised “profound doubt whether Russia and the Assad regime can or will live up to” cease-fire obligations.
Listening to Lavrov made him feel like he was living in a “parallel universe,” Kerry said.
On the ground, rebels battled the forces of the government of President Bashar Assad on major frontlines near Aleppo and Hama, and air strikes reportedly killed a dozen people including four medical workers.
“I emphasize this to Russia. The United States continues to believe there is a way forward that, although rocky and difficult and uncertain, can provide the most viable path out of the carnage,” Kerry said.
“If we allow spoilers to choose the path for us, the path of escalation ... then make no mistake my friends: the next time we convene here we’re going to be facing a Middle East with even more refugees, with more dead, with more displaced, with more extremists and more suffering on an even greater scale.”
He mocked what he described as absurd Russian explanations for an attack on an aid convoy on Monday that Washington says was carried out by Russian warplanes.

Source: Arab News