WASHINGTON _ The Obama administration Monday made good on an ultimatum delivered last week and withdrew its cooperation with Russia over Syria, signaling anger and exasperation at relentless Russian and Syrian airstrikes on Aleppo and other civilian sites.
The decision means Washington is breaking off diplomatic negotiations with Russia over Syria's fate and cancels plans to share military intelligence and operations-related information, including targeting, with Moscow.
"This is not a decision that was taken lightly," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
The decision came after continuous negotiations, including near-daily telephone conversations between Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, aimed at reducing violence and opening up routes for desperately needed food and medicine for besieged enclaves.
"Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments," Kirby said, "and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed."
Instead, the U.S. alleges, Russia and its ally, the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, used the time to pound rebel-held portions of Aleppo and numerous civilian neighborhoods with barrel bombs and other indiscriminate attacks. Hundreds of people have been killed in just the last week.
Russia had agreed to a partial cease-fire, but that fell apart quickly.
Kirby said the United States will withdraw a team that had been dispatched to open a so-called joint implementation center, in which Russian and American armed forces were going to join efforts to fight Islamic State and other jihadist groups.
