Russia and Turkey Broker Peace in Syria

Russia and Turkey have brokered a ceasefire deal between Syrian government forces and rebels that took effect at midnight and held through the early hours Friday, after initial isolated clashes and gunfire, a monitoring group and a rebel official said.

The truce was violated almost immediately after it came into effect as the warring sides clashed in the northwest of the country. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hours later that the general "calm continues".

Reuters reports that a rebel official in the Jaish al-Nasr group said there had been "some shelling during the night, but today it's stopped ... until now the situation is good."

The ceasefire, negotiated between Russia, Turkey. and the Syrian government, as well as Iran and Syrian rebel groups supported by Turkey, explicitly excludes factions deemed by the United Nations Security Council as "terrorists." This rules out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria that used to be known as Jabhat al-Nusra.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that the ceasefire was only a first step, with further diplomacy needed to enforce the truce and begin true peace talks. The Syrian military had promised to cease operations nationwide at midnight Thursday.

BBC also reports that isolated clashes have been reported since the truce. If it holds, despite some isolated clashes, peace talks are due to be held in Kazakhstan within a month.

“The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said most of the country was calm overnight. But it reported ‘fierce clashes’ between rebels and government forces in the northern province of Hama,” the BBC reports.

Russia and Turkey’s joint mediation of the truce is being called a “pop-up alliance” by CNN.

Having spent much of the year berating each other after Turkey shot down a Russian jet over the Syrian-Turkish border, the two governments are suddenly the "honest brokers" of a ceasefire in Syria - one that is designed to lead to political negotiations. The United States, which has long championed the stuttering diplomatic process on resolving the Syrian conflict, is nowhere to be seen.

By Thea Morrison

Photo: Aleppo  Source: CNN