World powers agree to end Syria hostilities

World powers on Friday agreed an ambitious plan to cease hostilities in war-torn Syria, but the Munich deal left out the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda’s local branch, leaving analysts to doubt its viability.

The 17 countries agreed “to implement a nationwide cessation of hostilities to begin in a target of one week’s time,” said US Secretary of State John Kerry after extended talks co-hosted by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The International Syria Support Group also agreed that “sustained delivery” of aid will begin this week, with a new UN task force meeting later on Friday in Geneva to start pushing for much greater access to “besieged and hard-to-reach areas”.

The deal went further than expected, with Lavrov talking about “direct contacts between the Russian and US military” on the ground.

But Kerry said they were under “no illusions” about the difficulty of implementing the agreement. Analysts were sceptical the deal would stop the bloodshed. “It is ambitious and yet very tenuous... there are huge question marks,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey, of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

He highlighted the fact that the Islamic State group (IS) and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra would not be covered by the “cessation of hostilities”.

The failure to include al-Nusra was particularly important, Barnes-Dacey said, since the group is active in Aleppo and surrounding regions, and many of the more “moderate” rebels have links with it.

“In many ways this Munich meeting was thrust to the fore by the situation in Aleppo, and yet the conditions of the agreement do not seem to apply to Aleppo,” said Barnes-Dacey.

“Talking about Nusra works in Russia’s favour as so many rebel groups have ties to Nusra. This effectively gives the green light for the Syrian government and its allies to carry on military action while paying lip service to the agreement.”