NEW YORK -- The United States ended any pretense Thursday of its and Russia's cease-fire for Syria remaining in force after days of increased violence and the Syrian military's announcement of a new offensive in Aleppo.
"We can't go out to the world and say we have an agreement when we don't," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after meeting the top diplomats from Russia and more than a dozen European and Middle Eastern countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Russian media outlets that consultations would continue to "guarantee" the cease-fire. Kerry and Lavrov were set to have more talks today.
But even as Kerry vowed to press on with all efforts to find a peaceful solution to the war between Syrian President Bashar Assad's Russia-backed government and U.S.-backed rebels, he acknowledged the current strategy wasn't working.
"We can't be the only ones trying to hold this door open," Kerry told reporters. "Russia and the regime must do their part, or this will have no chance."
He called for the immediate grounding of planes and helicopters that have launched airstrikes, including a Russian one earlier this week that the U.S. says hit an aid convoy, killing 20 civilians. Russia has denied responsibility while raising a range of scenarios for how the caravan might have been struck.
"Absent a major gesture like this, we don't believe there is a point to making more promises or issuing more plans or announcing something that can't be reached," Kerry said, describing a "moment of truth" for Syria, Russia and all those trying to halt the bloodshed.
The meeting came after Assad said in an interview with The Associated Press in Damascus that the United States was to blame for the deal's failure. He cited U.S. inability to control "terrorist" groups and a weekend attack that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers. The U.S. apologized for what it described as a mistake.
Lavrov had sought a three-day pause in fighting to revive the cease-fire.
But U.S. officials said there was no point returning to a situation in which rebels would be pressed to hold fire while the Syrian and Russian militaries could violate the agreement.
Aid convoys roll
The United Nations, meanwhile, resumed aid convoys Thursday to besieged communities in Syria for the first time since Monday's deadly attack on a line of trucks loaded with supplies.
The U.N.'s 25-truck convoy left Damascus with supplies for 40,000 people in Moadamiya, a suburb of the capital, said Jan Egeland, a U.N. special adviser for humanitarian affairs. Officials later said the convoy had arrived in the afternoon, after lengthy delays but without incident.
"We seem to be getting the permits and support we need," Egeland said while cautioning that the attack on the convoy Monday, the deadliest in the five years of Syria's civil war, had cast doubt on the safety and reliability of procedures that have provided the basis for aid deliveries to millions of Syrians.
The Syrian government prohibited U.N. staff members from accompanying the humanitarian aid convoy earlier in the week, Egeland said.
"We were not there," he told reporters Thursday in Geneva. "As U.N., we were not allowed in."
The presence of U.N. officials can often shield area relief workers on missions in dangerous areas. Monday's mission by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent had no such cover.
"We need a reboot, a restart for security assurances and guarantees for the humanitarian lifeline," Egeland said, adding that the U.N. had trucks loaded and ready to leave for other besieged towns before the end of the week, including Madaya, Kfarya, Fouaa and Zabadani.
Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee about Monday's attack on the aid convoy, Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there had been Russian and Syrian aircraft in the area at the time of the strike.
"There's no doubt in my mind that the Russians are responsible," Dunford said Thursday. "I just don't know whose aircraft actually dropped the bomb."
In Moscow, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia's defense ministry, said later that Dunford was only offering his "personal opinion" and that the "facts" supported Russia.
The ministry had denied any Russian or Syrian involvement and also suggested that a U.S. coalition Predator drone was operating nearby when the convoy attack occurred. The Pentagon said no drone was in the area at the time.
Assad, in his interview, also denied involvement in the attack and sought to shift the blame to opposition groups.
"Those convoys were in the area of the militants, the area under the control of the terrorists," he said. "We don't have any idea about what happened."
U.S. officials initially said the aircraft that dropped the bombs were Russian Su-24 fighter jets, but said they weren't sure whether the pilots were from Russian or Syrian forces. President Barack Obama's administration has blamed Russia either way because of Russia's continued influence over the Syrian government in the war.
When first asked if Russia bombed the aid convoy, Dunford said it wasn't certain which aircraft dropped the bombs. Under further questioning from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on whether it was Russia, Dunford answered, "that hasn't been concluded, but my judgment would be that they did." He was later asked again if it was Russia, and he answered yes.
The death toll in Monday's attack remains uncertain.
The U.S.-Russia-brokered cease-fire envisioned a military partnership between the two countries against the Islamic State and al-Qaida if violence was reduced and aid delivered over the course of seven continuous days. The Pentagon, however, voiced reservations about coordinating airstrikes and sharing intelligence with Russia.
Dunford told the committee he doesn't believe that "it would be a good idea to share intelligence with the Russians."
Dunford, along with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, disagreed with Kerry's proposal to ground all warplanes. They told the committee the U.S. should not discontinue flying aircraft over Syria. Dunford said he sees "no reason to ground our aircraft" and that the U.S.-led coalition needs to maintain pressure on the Islamic State.
A senior Foreign Ministry official in Moscow also rejected Kerry's proposal of no-fly areas.
"This plan is unworkable," said Sergei Ryabkov, the deputy foreign minister, according to the RIA news agency. The United States and rebel groups trying to topple Assad must lay down their arms, he added.
Assad: No U.S. accident
Assad, in his interview, said a U.S. airstrike Saturday that killed about 60 people identified as Syrian government troops was "definitely intentional, not unintentional, as they claimed."
The Pentagon has said that the pilots behind that strike intended to target Islamic State fighters and called it off after a warning from Russia that the attack might be hitting Syrian troops.
"It wasn't an accident by one airplane. ... It was four airplanes that kept attacking the position of the Syrian troops for nearly one hour, or a little bit more than one hour," Assad said during Wednesday's interview in Damascus' Muhajireen palace. "You don't commit a mistake for more than one hour."
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department dismissed Assad's claims as "ridiculous," adding that they underline that Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern.
"It's difficult to see how these ridiculous claims deserve a response, except to say they prove yet again the degree to which Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern and how vital it remains for the international community to achieve a political solution that gives the Syrian people a voice in their future," spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
Rebel-held areas in the divided city of Aleppo experienced heavy airstrikes overnight, including with incendiary weapons that set parts of it ablaze and left a breakthrough in peace talks looking like a distant prospect.
The Russian news media reported late Thursday that Syrian forces loyal to Assad's government had begun additional strikes against rebel-held areas of Aleppo. Airstrikes on Thursday destroyed one of the city's two water-treatment stations, serving both rebel- and government-controlled areas, according to activists and medical workers in Aleppo.
Trucks loaded with supplies of food and medicine for rebel-held eastern Aleppo remained on the border with Turkey, unable to move from the customs zone where they have been stuck for a week, waiting for government forces and armed groups to pull back from the road into the city, Egeland said.
Egeland of the U.N. told reporters that the city was encircled by military forces and that "it's impossible to get in."
Despite evidence to the contrary, Assad in the interview repeatedly denied that his forces were besieging opposition-held eastern Aleppo, which has become a symbol both of resistance and also the high price civilians are paying in the war.
He flatly denied claims of malnutrition and a chronic lack of medical supplies.
"If there's really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead by now," Assad said, asking how rebels were able to smuggle in arms but apparently not food or medicine.
The ancient city, now partly destroyed, has been carved out into rebel and government-controlled areas since 2012.
'External factors' of war
Assad, who inherited power from his father and is now in his 16th year in office, said his enemies alone were to blame for nearly six years of devastation across Syria. While acknowledging some mistakes, he repeatedly denied any excesses by his troops. He said the war was only likely to "drag on" because of continued external support for his opponents.
"When you have many external factors that you don't control, it's going to drag on, and no one in this world can tell you when" the war will end, he said, insisting that Syrians who fled the country could return within a few months if the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar stopped backing insurgents.
The strikes on Syria troops and the aid convoy contributed to the collapse of a cease-fire, which had already been marred by numerous violations on both sides of the conflict. They also cast serious doubt on chances for implementing an unprecedented U.S.-Russian agreement to jointly target militants in the country.
Assad said the United States lacked the will to work with Russia against extremists in Syria. "I don't believe the United States will be ready to join Russia in fighting terrorists in Syria," he said.
Assad, while acknowledging that the war had been "savage," said eyewitness accounts should not be automatically believed.
"Those witnesses only appear when there's an accusation against the Syrian army or the Russian [army], but when the terrorists commit a crime or massacre or anything, you don't see any witnesses. ... So, what a coincidence," he said.
Assad scoffed at the idea that Syria's "White Helmets" -- civil-defense volunteers in opposition held areas seen by many as symbols of bravery and defiance -- might be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize after a nomination earlier this year.
"What did they achieve in Syria?" he said. "I would only give a prize to whoever works for the peace in Syria."
The group shared this year's Right Livelihood Award, sometimes known as the alternative Nobel, with activists from Egypt and Russia and a Turkish newspaper, the prize foundation announced Thursday.
Asked about his methods, including the use of indiscriminate weapons, Assad said that "when you have terrorists, you don't throw at them balloons, or you don't use rubber sticks, for example. You have to use armaments."
Information for this article was contributed by Nick Cumming-Bruce, Somini Sengupta, Neil MacFarquhar and Anne Barnard of The New York Times and by Ian Phillips, Zeina Karam, Richard Lardner, Lolita C. Baldor, Robert Burns, Josh Lederman, James Heintz, Bradley Klapper and Matthew Lee of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/23/2016