The United Nations has delayed the vote on the East Ghouta ceasefire resolution until 5pm GMT on Saturday, president of the Security Council, Kuwaiti Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi, told journalists. The delay was caused by intense diplomatic negotiations, led by Russia, which seeks amendments to the Swedish-Kuwaiti draft. Moscow objects to the wording of the draft resolution, which proposes a 30-day ceasefire, as it pins the blame for the escalation of violence on Damascus and prepares ground for a potential regime change in Syria. On Thursday, Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia criticized the text as “utopian” at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rawaa has been living in a basement with around 75 others for months

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire in Syria to allow aid deliveries and medical evacuations.

However, some of the biggest jihadist rebel groups, and their associates, are not covered by the truce, raising questions about its real impact.

The Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave near Damascus has been bombarded by government forces for the past week.

And air strikes began soon after the vote in New York, activists said.

The vote had been delayed several times since Thursday as members struggled to come to an agreement.

Russia, an ally of Syria's government, wanted changes, while Western diplomats accused Moscow of stalling for time.

Some 500 people are said to have been killed by government forces in the enclave since last Sunday while rebels fire on Damascus has reportedly killed at least 16 civilians.

Why was the vote delayed?

The draft had said the ceasefire would not apply to operations against the Islamic State (IS) group, al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front.

The Nusra Front is a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria which changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) when it formed an alliance with other militants last year.

After Russia asked for the resolution to include other groups "co-operating with them", the final text specifies that operations may continue against "individuals, groups, undertakings and entities" associated with IS, al-Qaeda or other groups designated by the Security Council as terrorists.

Image copyright Reuters

The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called for the ceasefire to be implemented immediately but said she was sceptical that Syria would comply.

She accused Russia of having "dragged out the negotiations". She said: "In the three days it took us to adopt this resolution, how many mothers lost their kids to the bombing and the shelling?"

France's UN representative, François Delattre, also said the action was very "belated". On Friday he said failure to act could spell the end of the UN itself.

What does Russia say?

Its UN envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said the ceasefire would not be possible without agreements between warring factions and he attacked what he said was propaganda over the situation in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.

"We know that the humanitarian situation in Syria is dire and requires urgent measures to be taken," he said.

"It is important to engage not just with Eastern Ghouta," he added. "Assistance needs to be delivered to all parts of Syria."

How bad is the situation in the Eastern Ghouta?

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said the situation in the Eastern Ghouta is like "hell on Earth".

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Children have been injured in the bombardment of the Eastern Ghouta

Air strikes resumed on Sunday, hours after the Security Council meeting. They targeted the outskirts of Douma, the main town in the Easter Ghouta, causing several casualties, observers said.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that both Syrian and Russian planes have been used, although Russia denies direct involvement.

Barrel bombs and shells have been dropped on the area, where some 393,000 people remain trapped.

Aid groups report several hospitals being put out of action since Sunday.

The Syrian government has denied targeting civilians and said it is trying to liberate the Eastern Ghouta from "terrorists" - a term it has used to describe both the jihadist militants and the mainstream rebel groups that hold the enclave.

Who are the rebels in the enclave?

The rebels in Eastern Ghouta are not one cohesive group. They encompass multiple factions, including jihadists, and in-fighting between them has led to past losses of ground to the Syrian government.

The two biggest groups in the area are Jaish al-Islam and its rival Faylaq al-Rahman. The latter has in the past fought alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The Syrian government says its attempts to recapture Eastern Ghouta are directly due to the HTS presence there.</s>After several days of tense behind-the-scenes negotiations, the UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution proposing a 30-day humanitarian ceasefire in Syria.

“It would be naive to think that internal Syrian questions can be solved by a resolution,” said Russia’s Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia, who said Moscow “supported the intentions” behind the document, but that no ceasefire was possible “without agreement from warring parties.”

Nebenzia criticized the “occupational ambitions” of the US-backed coalition, and said that foreign-backed militias bore responsibility for the humanitarian crisis that the resolution, adopted by 15 votes to none, was written to address.

He also restated earlier accusations that the West was conducting a “propaganda campaign” against the government forces in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, where fighting has intensified over the past week.

The UN Security Council was to vote on the resolution proposed by Sweden and Kuwait on Friday, but the 15-member body faced intense diplomatic negotiations, with the Russian delegation seeking amendments to the document. Moscow argued that the initial text was “utopian” as the US-led coalition in Syria does not provide any guarantees that militants controlling the area would observe the ceasefire.

The Russian side has also stressed that the real goal of the document was to pin the blame for the escalation of violence on the Syrian government and potentially prepare the ground for regime change.</s>The U.N. Security Council on Friday delayed a vote on a demand for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, where pro-government warplanes have been pounding the last rebel bastion near Damascus in one of the deadliest bombing campaigns of the seven-year civil war.



A draft resolution aimed at ending the carnage in the eastern Ghouta district and elsewhere in Syria will be put up for a vote in the 15-member council at noon (1700 GMT) on Saturday, Kuwait's U.N. Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi said.



Al-Otaibi said negotiations were centered on the language of one paragraph that specifically demands a cessation of hostilities for 30 days, possibly starting 72 hours after adoption, to allow aid access and medical evacuations.



"We have not been able to close the gap completely," Olof Skoog, Sweden's U.N. ambassador, told reporters. "We're not going to give up. ... I hope that we will adopt something forceful, meaningful, impactful tomorrow." The delay followed a flurry of last-minute negotiations on the text drafted by Sweden and Kuwait after Russia, a veto-holding ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, proposed new amendments.



"Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley posted on Twitter.



Previous ceasefires, however, have had a poor record of ending fighting in Syria, where Assad's forces have gained the upper hand.



The towns and farms of eastern Ghouta have been under government siege since 2013, with shortages of food, water and electricity that worsened last year. Earlier on Friday, the densely populated enclave was bombed for a sixth straight day, witnesses said.



The civilian casualties and devastation there are among the worst in Syria since the government captured rebel-held parts of Aleppo in 2016. At least 462 people have been killed, including at least 99 children, and many hundreds injured, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday.



Syrian state media reported one person was killed and 58 injured in rebel shelling of sites in Damascus, including a hospital.



Clouding any potential ceasefire is the Syrian government's frequently used tactic of pushing rebels to surrender their strongholds after long sieges and military offensives.



Insurgents in eastern Ghouta have vowed not to accept such a fate, ruling out an evacuation of fighters, their families and other civilians of the kind that ended rebellions in Aleppo and Homs after heavy bombardment in earlier years.



"We refuse categorically any initiative that includes getting the residents out of their homes and moving them elsewhere," Ghouta rebel factions wrote in a letter to the Security Council.



Eastern Ghouta has 400,000 people spread over a larger area than other enclaves the government has recaptured. Late on Thursday, government aircraft dropped leaflets urging civilians to depart and hand themselves over to the Syrian army, marking corridors through which they could leave safely.</s>After multiple delays, the UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria.

The truce would allow for the delivery of emergency aid and the evacuation of the wounded in some of Syria's hardest-hit areas, including the besieged Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus.

Diplomats said Saturday's vote ended up being a bit of a showdown between Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and her Russian counterpart, Vassily Nebenzia, over the timing of a ceasefire.

The diplomats said the United States fought to keep language in the resolution that called for an immediate start to the ceasefire and unfettered humanitarian access without delay. The Russians kept trying to water it down to delay implementation, the diplomats said.

In the end the Russians relented and the language on an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian access were retained, the diplomats said. They said they are skeptical the Syrian regime will comply but are hopeful the resolution could be a turning point.

Speaking right after the vote, Haley took a jab at Russia, saying the Security Council was late to respond to the crisis.

"On Thursday, in an effort to stall, Russia called for an open meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria. At that meeting, 14 members of this council were ready to impose a ceasefire. But Russia obstructed the vote again," she said. "And then yesterday (Friday), this council sat around for hours, ready to vote, only to have Russia delay yet again. Every minute this council waited on Russia, the human suffering grew."

Haley said the bombing continued as the negotiations dragged on.

"In the three days it took us to adopt this resolution, how many mothers lost their kids to the bombing and shelling? How many more images did we need to see of fathers holding their dead children? All for nothing, because here we are voting for a ceasefire that could have saved lives days ago."

The death toll soared while diplomatic maneuvering was underway.

More than 520 people have been killed and 2,500 wounded since Sunday in the relentless bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, according to a statement from Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières.

"Our hospital is full, and we already got hit twice," a doctor with the humanitarian organization said Saturday on Twitter.

Syrian activists said the regime fired thousands of artillery shells and rocket fire Friday night and Saturday, including incendiary bombs.

"They were bursting in the sky, and the colors were white and dark orange," said Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue group.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said shelling by "incendiary substances" caused fires in Eastern Ghouta.

Around 400,000 people are in hiding as the Damascus suburbs have been pounded with shells, mortars and bombs since Sunday night.

Most of the dead are women, children and the elderly, Dr. Fayez Orabi, head of the enclave's health department, told CNN in a series of WhatsApp messages.

"It's difficult to have a precise count because of the internet and communications are weak and the shelling and bombing are 24 hours," Orabi said. "During writing this message to you more than 20 rockets have fell around us," he added.

Meanwhile, armed rebels in Eastern Ghouta used "dozens of mortar and rocket shells and sniper fire" to target residential neighborhoods in Damascus, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported Saturday.

The attacks injured a number of civilians and caused material damage, according to SANA.

Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch, said he hopes the ceasefire will provide a much-needed respite for Ghouta.

"It is important that all sides comply with the terms of the resolution and allow humanitarian aid and medical evacuations. But it is only a small step in the right direction," he said.</s>The U.N. Security Council has delayed a vote on a demand for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, where pro-government warplanes have been pounding the last rebel bastion near Damascus in one of the deadliest bombing campaigns of the seven-year civil war.

A draft resolution aimed at ending the carnage in the eastern Ghouta district and elsewhere in Syria will be put up for a vote in the 15-member council at noon (1700 GMT) on Saturday, Kuwait’s U.N. Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi said.

The 24-hour delay followed a flurry of last-minute negotiations on the text drafted by Sweden and Kuwait after Russia, a veto-holding ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, proposed new amendments on Friday.

“Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley posted on Twitter.

Talks have centred on the paragraph demanding a cessation of hostilities for 30 days to allow aid access and medical evacuations. A proposal for the truce to start 72 hours after the resolution’s adoption has been watered-down to instead demand it start “without delay” in a bid to win Russian support.

Diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Moscow does not want to specify when a truce should start. It was not immediately clear how Russia would vote on Saturday. A resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, Britain and France to be adopted.

“We’re not going to give up. … I hope that we will adopt something forceful, meaningful, impactful tomorrow,” Olof Skoog, Sweden’s U.N. ambassador, told reporters.

Previous ceasefires, however, have had a poor record of ending fighting in Syria, where Assad’s forces have gained the upper hand.

The towns and farms of eastern Ghouta have been under government siege since 2013, with shortages of food, water and electricity that worsened last year. Earlier on Friday, the densely populated enclave was bombed for a sixth straight day, witnesses said.

The civilian casualties and devastation there are among the worst in Syria since the government captured rebel-held parts of Aleppo in 2016. At least 462 people have been killed, including at least 99 children, and many hundreds injured, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday.

Syrian state media reported one person was killed and 58 injured in rebel shelling of sites in Damascus, including a hospital.

Clouding any potential ceasefire is the Syrian government’s frequently used tactic of pushing rebels to surrender their strongholds after long sieges and military offensives.

Insurgents in eastern Ghouta have vowed not to accept such a fate, ruling out an evacuation of fighters, their families and other civilians of the kind that ended rebellions in Aleppo and Homs after heavy bombardment in earlier years.

“We refuse categorically any initiative that includes getting the residents out of their homes and moving them elsewhere,” Ghouta rebel factions wrote in a letter to the Security Council.

Eastern Ghouta has 400,000 people spread over a larger area than other enclaves the government has recaptured. Late on Thursday, government aircraft dropped leaflets urging civilians to depart and hand themselves over to the Syrian army, marking corridors through which they could leave safely.

Leading up to the Security Council vote, all eyes have been on Russia. Moscow has a history of standing in the way of Security Council measures that would harm Assad’s interests.

Germany and France were among the nations to ratchet up the pressure on Russia, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron asking Russian President Vladimir Putin to support the resolution.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow wanted guarantees that rebel fighters will not shoot at residential areas in Damascus.

Damascus and Moscow say they only target militants. They have said their main aim is to stop rebel shelling of the capital, and have accused insurgents in Ghouta of holding residents as human shields.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government planes and artillery hit Douma, Zamalka and other towns across the enclave in the early hours of Friday.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

Medical charities say more than a dozen hospitals were hit, making it nearly impossible to treat the wounded.

A witness in Douma who asked not to be identified said by telephone that the early morning bombing was the most intense so far. Another resident, in the town of Hamouriyeh, said the assault had continued “like the other days.”

“Whenever the bombing stops for some moments, the Civil Defence vehicles go out to the targeted places. They work to remove the debris from the road,” Bilal Abu Salah said.

The Civil Defence there said its rescuers rushed to help the wounded after strikes on Hamouriyeh and Saqba. The emergency service, which operates in rebel territory, says it has pulled hundreds of people out from under rubble in recent days.

Hamza Birqdar, the military spokesman for the Jaish al-Islam rebel faction, said it had thwarted nine attacks by pro-government militias trying to storm a front in the southeast of Ghouta.</s>UNITED NATIONS/BEIRUT: The U.N. Security Council on Friday delayed a vote on a demand for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria where pro-government warplanes have been pounding the last rebel bastion near Damascus in one of the deadliest bombing campaigns of the seven-year civil war.

A draft resolution aimed at ending the carnage in the eastern Ghouta district and elsewhere in Syria will be put up for a vote in the 15-member council at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) on Saturday, Kuwait’s U.N. Ambassador Mansour Ayyad Al-Otaibi said.

Al-Otaibi said talks were centred on the language of one paragraph that specifically demands a cessation of hostilities for 30 days, possibly starting 72 hours after adoption, to allow aid access and medical evacuations.

"We have not been able to close the gap completely," Sweden's U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog told reporters. "We're not going to give up ... I hope that we will adopt something forceful, meaningful, impactful tomorrow."

The delay followed a flurry of last-minute negotiations on the text drafted by Sweden and Kuwait after Russia, a veto-holding ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, proposed new amendments.

"Unbelievable that Russia is stalling a vote on a ceasefire allowing humanitarian access in Syria," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley posted on Twitter.

Previous ceasefires, however, have had a poor record of ending fighting in Syria, where Assad's forces have gained the upper hand.

The towns and farms of eastern Ghouta have been under government siege since 2013, with shortages of food, water and electricity that worsened last year. Earlier on Friday, the densely populated enclave was bombed for a sixth straight day, witnesses said.

The civilian casualties and devastation there are among the worst in Syria since the government captured rebel-held parts of Aleppo in 2016. At least 462 people have been killed, including at least 99 children, and many hundreds injured, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Friday.

Syrian state media reported one person was killed and 58 injured in rebel shelling of sites in Damascus, including a hospital.

Clouding any potential ceasefire is the Syrian government's frequently used tactic of pushing rebels to surrender their strongholds after long sieges and military offensives.

Insurgents in eastern Ghouta have vowed not to accept such a fate, ruling out an evacuation of fighters, their families and other civilians of the kind that ended rebellion in Aleppo and Homs after heavy bombardment in earlier years.

"We refuse categorically any initiative that includes getting the residents out of their homes and moving them elsewhere," Ghouta rebel factions wrote in a letter to the Security Council on Friday.</s>GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura renewed his urgent call on Friday for a ceasefire to stop both the “horrific” bombing of besieged eastern Ghouta and indiscriminate mortar shelling on Damascus.

The ceasefire needs to be followed by immediate, unhindered humanitarian access to eastern Ghouta and evacuation of sick and injured, de Mistura said in a statement read out by U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci to a Geneva briefing.

The three guarantors of the Astana process - Russia, Iran and Turkey - must meet urgently to re-install the de-escalation zones in Syria, he said, speaking hours before a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution on a 30-day truce</s>The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a 30-day ceasefire resolution in Syria after a relentless bombardment of the country's eastern Ghouta enclave near Damascus that has left hundreds dead.

Saturday's vote, which was supposed to be at noon, was held up by deliberations for two hours and comes after several days of delay.

In a speech following the vote, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley argued that the council is "late to respond to this crisis. Very late."

More than 400 people have been killed since Sunday in bombing raids in eastern Ghouta.

Around 400,000 people are in hiding as the rebel-held suburb crumbles around them after being pounded with shells, mortars and bombs dropped by Russian-backed Syrian regime forces since Sunday night.</s>Turkey welcomes a United Nations Security Council resolution on a month-long ceasefire in Syria, but says it will have no effect on Ankara's ongoing cross-border offensive in Syria’s northwestern region of Afrin against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously voted in favor of a resolution demanding a 30-day truce in Syria 'without delay' to allow aid delivery and medical evacuations.

The resolution was adopted by 15 votes to none, after several delays and a flurry of last-minute negotiations amid growing concerns about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Eastern Ghouta has witnessed renewed violence in the past few days, where terrorists have mounted repeated mortar attacks on the Syrian capital in the face of an imminent rout. Western powers, however, blame the Syrian government and Russia for the crisis.

"We welcome the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in response to the worsening humanitarian situation all across Syria, in particular in Eastern Ghouta," Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
• Turkish military not avoiding civilians in strikes against Syria’s Afrin: HRW

Turkey launched the so-called Operation Olive Branch in Syria's Afrin on January 20 in a bid to eliminate the YPG, which Ankara views as a terror organization and the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Turkey has warned that the Afrin offensive could expand to the nearby Syrian city of Manbij.

Damascus on February 1 complained to the UN about Turkey's military campaign in northern Syria, denouncing the operation as "an assault and occupation" of the Syrian territory.

Ankara continues to "spread lies" about its military aggression against Syria and tries to justify the action as an act of self-defense, Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said in two letters addressed to the UN chief and the Security Council chairman.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in January condemned Turkish military operation in Afrin, stating that the offensive was part of Ankara's support for Takfiri terrorist groups operating inside the conflict-plagued Arab country.

Operation Olive Branch has heightened tensions with the United States, which works closely with the YPG in fighting against Daesh terrorists in Syria.

Meanwhile, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag insisted that his country's operation in Afrin would not be affected by the unanimous UN demand for a ceasefire in the war-ravaged country.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also said that there would be no let-up in the Afrin operation, without directly mentioning the Security Council's resolution.

He added that Turkey had killed more than 2020 "terrorists" since the beginning of the operation, although it is not possible to verify this figure.

While Turkey is coming under mounting pressure over reports of rising civilian casualties, Erdogan has announced plans to expand the offensive to city of Manbij where Turkish troops are likely to face US-led forces.

Speaking to reporters at the Munich Security Conference on February 18, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu rejected claims by Kurdish forces and a monitoring group that Ankara had carried out a gas attack in its ongoing offensive in Afrin.

He said Turkey had never used internationally-banned chemical weapons in its operations in Syria, adding that his country took the utmost care to protect civilians in the cross-border military operation.

Operation Olive Branch in Afrin region is Turkey's second major military intervention in Syria during the foreign-backed militancy that broke out in the Arab country in 2011.

In August 2016, Turkey began a unilateral military intervention in northern Syria, code-named Operation Euphrates Shield, sending tanks and warplanes across the border. Ankara claimed that its military campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh from Turkey's border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces, who were themselves fighting Daesh.

Turkey ended its campaign in northern Syria in March 2017, but at the time did not rule out the possibility of yet another act of military offensive inside its southern neighbor.
• Turkey will lay siege to Syria’s Afrin in coming days: Erdogan
The United Nations Security Council unanimously approves a resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire in Syria.