The UN Security Council unanimously approved late on Saturday a resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire across Syria to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and to evacuate the ill and wounded.
The decision excluded targeting ISIS, al-Qaeda and their linked terrorist groups.
In an assertion that words should be supported by action, Kuwait's Permanent Representative Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, who is the Council President for the month, called on all parties to respect the immediate ceasefire and to secure the implementation of the council’s resolution.
"Now, we must implement this resolution,” he said, adding that the resolution is a positive sign sent by the Security Council.
For her part, US Ambassador Nikki Haley asserted the need that Assad’s regime stops its military operations in Damascus’ eastern Ghouta.
She said that Russia’s delay in approving the resolution caused the killing of additional civilians in eastern Ghouta.
“As they dragged out the negotiation, the bombs from Assad’s fighter jets continued to fall. In the three days it took us to adopt this resolution, how many mothers lost their kids to the bombing and shelling?” Haley said.
Russian UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia responded to the US accusations saying that it took so much time to reach an agreement because an immediate cessation of hostilities was “not feasible, not possible.”
Instead, the ambassador said practical solutions and contacts should be held with the Syrian authorities.
Saturday’s vote was postponed for several days of lengthy and intense negotiations to try to get support from Russia as deaths mount in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 3,000 people were killed and injured in the eastern Ghouta in a week of bombardment caused by Syrian regime forces.
The Observatory even reported that Assad’s forces had pounded the Damascus suburbs after Saturday’s UN Security Council vote.
