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Conflict in Syria

UN confirms Syrian ceasefire and humanitarian task forces to meet on April 13

Next sessions of the Cease-fire Task Force and the Humanitarian Access Task Force will be held in Geneva

GENEVA, April 11. /TASS/. Next sessions of the Cease-fire Task Force and the Humanitarian Access Task Force will be held in Geneva on Thursday, April 13, Director of the United Nations Information Service, Alessandra Vellucci, confirmed on Tuesday.

"Following requests at this morning's press briefing, I would like to confirm that the International Syria Support Group's Humanitarian Access Task Force will meet on Thursday, 13 April at 11:00 A.M. at the Palais des Nations," Alessandra Vellucci said.

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"The Cease-fire Task Force will also meet on the same day, at 2:00 P.M.," she added.

The task forces usually meet on Thursdays with the participation of representatives from the countries members of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). Russia and the US are the co-chairmen.

The question whether the groups will meet for a next session on April 13 was in the focus of reporters’ attention given a difficult atmosphere in the Syrian settlement after a US missile strike on April 7. Vellucci at first declined to answer this question saying she had no information, but in the afternoon journalists received her e-mail saying the groups will meet.

An emergency meeting of the ISSG’ ceasefire task force was held in Geneva on April 7. It was convened upon Russia’s initiative following a US missile strike against the airbase Shairat of the Syrian government forces.

Russia qualified the strike as an act of aggression against a sovereign state. It also stressed that these moves will deal a blow to the ceasefire in Syria and negotiations in Geneva and Astana. Russia demanded an independent investigation into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Khan-Sheikhoun used as a pretext for the US missile strike on the Syrian government air base.

Following an order from the U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. armed forces fired a total of 59 Tomahawk subsonic cruise missiles on a military airfield in Syria’s Homs Governorate. The strike came as a response to the chemical attack in Idlib on April 4 and targeted what Washington claims was a starting location for the attack.

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