AMMAN, Jordan—Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that a “provisional agreement” has been reached on a Syrian ceasefire that could begin in the next few days, but he acknowledged that it’s not finalized and all parties might not automatically comply.
Explosions meanwhile ripped through the central Syrian city of Homs and a Damascus suburb, killing dozens of people, and government forces backed by Russian warplanes pressed a major offensive north of Aleppo that has undermined previous efforts to halt the fighting.
Kerry said he discussed the terms with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and said the two must now reach out to the opposing forces in the conflict. He declined to go into the details of the agreement, saying it “is not yet done.”
“The modalities for a cessation of hostilities are now being completed,” Kerry said. “We are closer to a ceasefire today than we have been. A cessation of hostilities ... is possible over the course of these next hours.” He said he hoped President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would talk soon and that implementation could then begin.
U.N. envoy Staffan De Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on Feb. 3, because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensive by Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian airstrikes. The humanitarian situation has only gotten worse, with an estimated 13.5 million Syrians in need of aid, including 6 million children.
“Peace is better than more war,” Kerry said, standing next to Nasser Judeh, the foreign minister of Jordan, which hosts 635,000 Syrian refugees. “A political solution is better than then a futile attempt to try to find a military one that could result in so many more refugees, so many more jihadists, so much more destruction, and possibly even the complete destruction of Syria itself.”
The explosions in Homs on Sunday killed at least 46 people and wounded dozens, according to Syria’s Foreign Ministry. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists around Syria, gave the same toll for the Homs blasts, saying they were caused by a pair of car bombs.
Blasts also ripped through a Shiite suburb of Damascus, according to Syrian state TV, which had no immediate word on casualties. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said a car bomb and two suicide attackers killed 22 people in the Sayyida Zeinab neighborhood, home to one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines. Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Assad’s forces and maintains a large presence in the neighborhood.
Most of the bombing attacks in Homs over the past months have been claimed by IS, which controls parts of the surrounding province, including the historic town of Palmyra. The Aamaq news agency, which is affiliated with the extremist group, said IS was behind the Homs explosions.
Syrian TV aired footage of the destruction in Homs. Debris and mangled cars filled the streets and the charred body of a man was seen being taken away on a stretcher.
The Zahra neighborhood, where the attacks took place, is predominantly Alawite, the minority Muslim sect to which Assad belongs.
Homs, once dubbed the capital of the Syrian revolution, has been hit with a wave of attacks in recent months, killing and wounding scores of people. The rebels controlled large parts of Homs after the uprising against Assad’s government began in March 2011.
With time, the government gained control of most of the city, and a deal was reached late last year for militants to evacuate the last rebel-held neighborhood of Waer.
To the north, the Syrian army captured 31 villages on Sunday that were controlled by IS, according to the pro-Syrian Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar station.
Al-Mayadeen and Al-Manar often have reporters embedded with Syrian troops in northern Syria.
Syrian state media earlier reported that Syrian troops had captured some 10 villages in Aleppo province from IS.
