WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Friday for a war-crimes investigation of Russia and Syria after reporting that forces backing the Syrian government hit a hospital overnight, killing 20 people and wounding 100, the latest strike by Russia or its ally on a civilian target.
A spokesman said the attack occurred Thursday outside Damascus.
Human-rights groups accuse Syria and Russia of killing thousands in their assault on Aleppo, Syria's largest city.
"Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities, and children and women," Kerry told reporters alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, who arrived in Washington directly from meeting Russian officials in Moscow.
"These are acts that beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes," Kerry said. "They're beyond the accidental now, way beyond, years beyond the accidental. This is a targeted strategy to terrorize civilians and to kill anybody and everybody who is in the way of their military objectives."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Kerry was trying to divert attention from the United States' failure to uphold a cease-fire in Syria.
"Kerry used these words from the point of view of fanning tensions," spokesman Maria Zakharova said. "As long as war crimes are at question, the Americans should start with Iraq. And then look at Libya and Yemen to see what is going on there."
The U.S. has little chance of being able to initiate a war-crimes probe of either Russia or Syria. Russia has veto power at the U.N. Security Council and has blocked repeated attempts over the last 5½ years to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad's government or hold it accountable for the allegations of indiscriminate killing, torture and chemical weapons attacks.
Ayrault spoke of a new French effort for a cease-fire in Syria that would include a U.N. Security Council vote today. But it's unclear what advantages his plan would have over the U.S.-Russian-led process that collapsed last month.
Kerry's Sept. 9 agreement with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov sought to stop fighting for a week and to permit aid deliveries to reach desperate civilians in rebel-held parts of Aleppo and other besieged areas. Had those been successful, the agreement would have created a new counterterrorism alliance in Syria -- but neither condition was ever met.
The truce then shattered completely when Syria and Russia renewed their military offensive in Aleppo. Kerry ended bilateral discussions with Russia on the military partnership earlier this week.
Speaking in English, Ayrault called Syria a "human tragedy" that demands every effort to restart a peace negotiation.
Switching to French, he said today would be a "moment of truth" at the Security Council. He said the question that will be posed to everyone, but particularly to Russia, is: "Do you, yes or no, want a cease-fire in Aleppo?"
Such a cease-fire would be "open to discussion," but Ayrault said two demands were absolute. "The first one is the cease-fire and no-fly zone over Aleppo," he said. "And the second pillar is access for humanitarian aid. We're not giving up."
At the current rate of fighting, Ayrault lamented, "Aleppo will be totally destroyed by Christmas."
Russia's United Nations ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, rejected the French-proposed Security Council resolution, which would call for grounding all aircraft, including Russia's, over Aleppo.
The resolution, also calling for an Aleppo cease-fire, is to be considered today, but Churkin said, "I cannot possibly see how we can let this resolution pass."
In a last-minute move Friday, Russia introduced its own draft resolution urging "immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Syria," similar language to the French text.
But Russia's draft adds two new elements: It stresses "the urgent need to achieve and verify separating moderate forces from 'Jabhat Al-Nusra' [Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front] as a key priority," a reference to the al-Qaida linked militant group. It also welcomes U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura's proposal for Fatah al-Sham to leave Aleppo in exchange for a halt to Russian and Syrian government bombardment.
The Security Council will vote today first on the French draft and then on the Russia draft.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft echoed de Mistura's contention that the bombing raids in eastern Aleppo, with a population of 275,000 civilians including 100,000 children, were indiscriminate.
"This is not about stamping terrorism, this is about killing civilians," Rycroft said. "We are all in favor of fighting terrorism in Syria but the biggest single killer of innocent civilians in Syria is the Syrian regime. The second-biggest killer of innocent civilians in Syria is Russia, and it's only the third-biggest killer of innocent civilians in Syria that is al-Qaida, [Fatah al-Sham] and all the other terrorists."
The war has killed as many as 500,000 people since 2011 and contributed to Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Russia began its air campaign in Syria a year ago, reversing the tide of war and helping Assad's forces make significant territorial gains. The U.S. responded by engaging Russia in a multinational process aimed at getting all of Syria's fighting parties, except the Islamic State and al-Qaida, to buy into a cease-fire and eventual unity government.
Syrian human-rights observers claim Russia has killed as many as 9,400 people, crushing hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure in rebel-held areas along the way.
Russia, meanwhile, appears to be plowing ahead with its long-term strategy for Syria.
As Kerry and Ayrault spoke at the State Department, Russia's lower house of parliament ratified a new treaty with Syria that would allow Russia's military to remain indefinitely in the Arab country. The vote was unanimous.
Lawmakers in the State Duma voted unanimously to approve the deal, which allows Russia to keep its forces at the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, Assad's Alawite heartland, for as long as it wants. The deal was signed in August 2015 in Damascus, a month before the Russian air campaign began.
Russia also has a naval base in Syria's port of Tartus, the only such outpost outside the former Soviet Union. That base is not covered by the treaty, and some lawmakers say it could be the subject of a separate deal.
Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov, Philip Issa, Bassem Mroue, Jim Heintz and Edith Lederer of The Associated Press.
A Section on 10/08/2016