Kerry Slams Syria’s Ceasefire Offer

Proposal Sought Aleppo Ceasefire, Prisoner Swap

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem is pushing a plan for a ceasefire in the disputed northern city of Aleppo, humanitarian aid corridors, as well as a prisoner exchange with rebel opposition factions in the area as an attempt at confidence building.

The proposal has sparked outrage from Secretary of State John Kerry, who believes that the efforts are aimed at stealing his thunder at next week’s Geneva 2 peace talks.

Kerry insisted that the Assad government was engaged in “revisionism” by trying to make Geneva 2 about how to deal with the rise of al-Qaeda across the nation’s north.

Kerry even went on to claim that Assad was secretly “funding and ceding territory” to al-Qaeda to fuel fears of al-Qaeda’s growing control over the country.

He insisted that the Geneva 2 talks will center around the installation of a transitional government to replace Assad, though with no rebels slated to attend there is no reason to expect that to happen.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.