UN, December 5. /TASS/. A UN Security Council vote on ceasefire in the Syrian city of Aleppo should be postponed pending the outcome of Russian-US settlement talks, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said Monday.

Russian and US top diplomats, Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry, agreed on a settlement plan for Aleppo during their latest meeting. The plan includes the withdrawal of militants from the eastern part of the city.

In the run-up to a closed UN Security Council meeting, Churkin told reporters that details of the Russian-US plan will be discussed by experts in Geneva in coming days.

‘We need to wait for the results of this expert meeting first, and adopt a resolution after that," the envoy said.

He added that any UN Security Council resolution is unlikely to have any practical effect if not backed by preparatory work.

"Militants in east Aleppo will not say ‘let’s end hostilities at 9 p.m. today’ after opening a local paper tomorrow morning and reading the text of the resolution. This will never happen. All parties to the conflict need to have a clear understanding of what they should do," Churkin said.

The ambassador added that under the rule of procedure, the vote should take place no earlier than 24 hours after the final version of a draft is submitted to the Security Council.

‘The vote cannot take place before 11 a.m. local time tomorrow (19:00 Moscow time)," he said.

In their turn, ambassadors of France and the United Kingdom, Francois Delattre and Matthew Rycroft, have urged to adopt the resolution immediately.

The draft resolution, prepared by Egypt, Spain and New Zealand, envisages an initial ceasefire period of 7 days, allowing the delivery of humanitarian cargo and paving the way for the resumption of settlement talks.