WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Wednesday to end all cooperation between the United States and Russia to stop Syria's civil war, unless Russian and Syrian government attacks on Aleppo end. More than 250 people are believed to have been killed in the besieged city in the past week.
Kerry's warning came in a telephone call Wednesday to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the State Department said, describing the latest U.S. ultimatum in Syria's 5½-year conflict. Many warnings have gone unfulfilled, including President Barack Obama's declaration that the U.S. would take military action if Syrian President Bashar Assad crossed the "red line" of using chemical weapons.
"The burden remains on Russia to stop this assault and allow humanitarian access to Aleppo and other areas in need," Kerry told Lavrov, according to State Department spokesman John Kirby.
Kerry said the U.S. is preparing to "suspend U.S.-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria," including talks on a possible counter-extremist partnership, "unless Russia takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore" a cease-fire.
Government shelling and airstrikes landed near a bread distribution center and two hospitals in Aleppo on Wednesday. Activists and medics reported several people killed. They said at least one of the medical facilities was no longer operable, leaving the country's biggest city with only six functioning hospitals.
The Syrian government and its ally Russia have been accused of intentionally targeting medical facilities in rebel-held areas. The U.S.-based Physicians for Human Rights has recorded 382 such attacks throughout Syria since the conflict started in 2011. The group says government forces carried out 293 of the attacks. Russian warplanes conducted 16.
Despite Moscow's military engagement in the war alongside Assad's government, Washington has been working with its former Cold War foe in hopes of securing a cease-fire and a peace process. The latest effort collapsed last week after several days of reduced violence, but the U.S. and Russia have been discussing ways to revive it.
Obama's administration had hoped that the promise of the new U.S.-Russian alliance against the Islamic State extremist group and al-Qaida affiliates would be enough to get Moscow to ground Assad's forces.
Current coordination to ensure U.S. and Russian planes stay out of one another's way will continue no matter what, the Pentagon said. The U.S. and its coalition partners are flying missions in Syria against the Islamic State; the U.S. also has a small contingent of special forces on the ground.
Kerry's threat aside, the U.S. has few other options beyond engaging Moscow to end the fighting between Assad's forces and rebels.
Obama has made clear he won't authorize military action against Syria and the presence of Russian air assets alongside Syrian forces makes such a scenario all the more unlikely. The U.S. is similarly uncomfortable ramping up military support for anti-Assad rebels given the close ties many groups maintain with al-Qaida-linked militants.
In the telephone call with Lavrov, Kerry "expressed grave concern over the deteriorating situation in Syria, particularly for continued Russian and Syrian regime attacks on hospitals, the water supply network and other civilian infrastructure in Aleppo," Kirby's statement said.
"The secretary made clear the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk."
Russia's Foreign Ministry presented a different version of the call, making no reference to the U.S. ultimatum.
Lavrov and Kerry discussed ways to "normalize" the situation in Aleppo and "return to the basic principles" of the Sept. 9 cease-fire, the ministry said.
A 'slaughterhouse'
In Aleppo, activists and medics said government shelling and airstrikes landed near a bread distribution center and two hospitals Wednesday, killing seven people.
At a Security Council meeting, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the conditions in eastern, rebel-held Aleppo as worse than a "slaughterhouse."
"Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly what they are doing -- they know they are committing war crimes," Ban said, without naming any countries. Syria's government is waging an offensive in Aleppo, and both Syria and Russia are carrying out airstrikes on the city.
Doctors Without Borders, which supported the two hospitals damaged Wednesday, said a "brutal and relentless onslaught from air and land" has left eastern Aleppo with just seven surgical doctors to treat a population of some 250,000.
The head of the organization said people are being taken off life support because of a "multitude" of wounded, and doctors in eastern Aleppo are left to "await their own deaths."
Joanna Liu called the war "a race to the bottom," and called on the U.N. Security Council to "enact an absolute prohibition of attacks on medical facilities."
Aref al-Aref, a nurse at M2, one of the hospitals, said government shelling hit the bread distribution center near the city center before dawn. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Aleppo Media Center said six people were killed outside the center.
In another attack, an airstrike hit near a hospital in the northern part of the rebel-held area, cutting off electricity and water supplies. Mohammed Abu Rajab, head of the M10 hospital, the largest of eight in eastern Aleppo, said the intensive-care unit was most affected. The generators and the oxygen supplies were knocked out.
Abu Rajab said the unit's patients had to be moved to another facility. Water supplies and the hospital's fuel tanks also were hit, he said.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the neighborhood where the M10 hospital is has been targeted by warplanes, helicopters and artillery since early Wednesday.
"It hit when we were asleep. No one has slept since, and we are exhausted," said Abu Rajab. He said authorities "know this facility and where it is very well." No one was wounded in the attack, he said.
Adham Sahloul of the U.S.-based Syrian American Medical Society, which supports the two hospitals, said the attacks on the medical facilities took place at the same time, suggesting that they were deliberately targeted. He said that while the two hospitals were not directly hit, the attacks caused structural damage to both.
Information for this article was contributed by Vladimir Isachenkov, Sarah El Deeb, Edith M. Lederer and Jamey Keaten of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/29/2016