BEIRUT — Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said in a TV interview broadcast Monday that an internationally brokered cease-fire for Syria is still viable, as rescue workers in Aleppo cleaned up from what they said were the worst airstrikes on rebel-held areas of the northern city in five years.
Al-Moallem, in the interview on Mayadeen TV from New York, also said President Bashar Assad's administration is prepared to take part in a unity government, incorporating elements from the opposition, an offer that has been rejected in the past by his opponents.
The interview comes amid spiraling violence in Syria, particularly around the contested city of Aleppo. According to opposition activists, more than 200 civilians have been killed in the past week under a sustained aerial campaign that U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called one of the worst of the 5 1/2-year war. The United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting but failed to take any action because of deep divisions between Russia and the Western powers.
"What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counterterrorism, it's barbarism," said U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power. "It's apocalyptic what is being done in eastern Aleppo."
Al-Moallem accused the U.S., Britain, and France of convening the Security Council meeting a day earlier in order to support "terrorists" inside Syria. But he said ongoing communications between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meant a truce agreement brokered two weeks ago is "not dead."
Syria's military declared the cease-fire ended one week ago.
The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the cease-fire in Syria is ineffective but that Moscow is not losing hope for a political solution to the country's crisis.
However, Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the Kremlin is concerned that "terrorists are using the cease-fire regime to regroup, to replenish their arsenals and for obvious preparations to carry out attacks."
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