US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke on Wednesday with his Russian and Turkish counterparts by phone over the need for a cease-fire in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo and for a continuance of political talks to end the war, the State Department said.
During a daily press briefing on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said Kerry spoke to the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Qatar after a cease-fire brokered on Tuesday by Turkey and Russia collapsed.
“In all of these conversations, the secretary has stressed the need to continue to try to stop the bloodshed and the violence through a meaningful cease-fire, and he noted that whatever was announced yesterday obviously didn’t survive very long due to the regime and to militias and fighters that are backed by Iran violating it,” he said.
Kirby also underlined that Kerry stressed the desperate need for humanitarian aid to get in and for the establishment of humanitarian corridors for people to get out and be able to get out safely from Aleppo. “None of those things obviously have happened,” he added.