US, Russia to partake in Syria talks on Saturday

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian counterpart in Switzerland on Saturday to discuss Syria, officials said today, as a devastating bombing campaign of the city of Aleppo intensified.

The Syrian government launched an assault to capture rebel-held areas of Aleppo last month with Russian air support and Iranian-backed militias, a week into a ceasefire agreed by Washington and Moscow.

Kerry broke off talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week over the offensive, which has included airstrikes on hospitals that the United States and France said amounted to war crimes for which Syria and Russia were responsible.

The Syrian and Russian governments blamed their foes for breaking the ceasefire and said they target only militants in the city, the last major urban stronghold of the Western-backed opposition, where more than 250,000 people are trapped under siege.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Kerry and Lavrov would meet in the Swiss city of Lausanne to consider steps towards settling the conflict. The meeting will include foreign ministers from Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A senior State Department official confirmed Kerry would attend.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Washington remained committed to a “deep multilateral engagement” to reduce the violence in Syria which would “necessarily” involve Russia too.

“But it is no longer in the context of trying to broker this agreement that would … hold out the prospect of US military cooperation with Russia. That’s something that Russia has lost… the credibility to be able to try to agree to,” he said.

Twenty-five people were killed by heavy airstrikes on opposition-held areas of Aleppo today, the Civil Defence, a rescue service working in opposition-held areas, said on Twitter, adding that 15 of them were killed at a market place in the Fardous district.

The Syrian army has denied targeting civilians.