Russia 'ready' to cooperate with US on Syria truce

Russia said on Thursday it would study a draft French resolution on a ceasefire in Syria, and was ready to cooperate with the United States through multilateral talks.

Earlier in the week, Washington halted bilateral efforts to solve the conflict, in protest against Syrian and Russian bombings on the besieged city of Aleppo.

“We regret that our American colleagues have announced the stoppage or suspension of our bilateral work on Syria,“Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow on Thursday.

“But we noticed that this decision didn’t include multilateral formats and we are ready to use them,” Lavrov said, speaking at a joint news conference with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

#BREAKING #Russia 'ready to work on' #France's draft #Syria resolution: FM Lavrov – AFP pic.twitter.com/zcXh0Chdyk

— Dmitry Zaks (dmitryzaksAFP) October 6, 2016

Ayrault has submitted to the United Nations a draft resolution to end the fighting in Aleppo, and he will next be in Washington on Friday to seek support from the United States. The negotiated truce would allow aid into the besieged eastern part of Aleppo, where food supplies are running short.

“These bombings, this violence (in Syria) creates tomorrow’s jihadists. So we must stop the massacre but also this spiral that only strengthens terrorism,” Ayrault said.

The French doing what they can on #Syria. Draft resolution calls for “an end to all military flights over” #Aleppo https://t.co/I7bi2r2yaY

— Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) October 5, 2016