Assad forces withdraw from main route to Aleppo

Syrian regime forces have begun to withdraw military equipment from the Castello Road to create a demilitarized zone as part of a truce agreement reached between Moscow and Washington, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported today.

“The US-Russian agreement provides for the withdrawal of weapons from the regime and the opposition in parallel,” the ministry said.

Earlier, UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said that Bashar Al-Assad’s government was effectively holding up deliveries by withholding letters of authorisation required to ensure their safe passage.

“Those facilitation letters, a final permission for the UN to actually reach those areas has not been received… It is particularly regrettable because normally during these days we are losing time, these are days which we should have used for convoys to move with the permit to go because there is no fighting.”

Twenty trucks of aid are expected to enter the eastern neighbourhood of Aleppo tomorrow, opposition sources said.