The US have withdrawn a proposal on Aleppo advanced on December 2 in Rome on the sidelines of the Med 2016 Conference and sent another one ”yesterday” to Moscow in an attempt to ”gain time to enable militants to catch breath and get provisions”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a joint press conference with the secretary general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland. ”There is awareness that it is not possible to have serious talks with our American partners”, Lavrov said. Russian and American experts will not discuss about the situation in Syria tomorrow, Lavrov noted. ”Yesterday we received” from the American side ”a message according to which unfortunately they won’t be able to meet us tomorrow” in Geneva because ”they have changed ideas” on how to solve the situation in Aleppo. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, assured that contacts on Syria between US and Russian experts will continue in Geneva. Lavrov said the fact that militants ”have refused to leave” Aleppo ”doesn’t mean anything”. “There is nothing to refuse, the agreements have not been concluded yet” and anyone refusing to get out of East Aleppo ”will be eliminated, there is no alternative”, the Minister said after meeting in Moscow with the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjorn Jagland.
