Ban noted that the adopted resolution called for implementation of previous resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. He also called for ensuring access for humanitarian organizations across Syria.

“The Secretary-General hopes that these developments will lead to productive talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, and contribute to intra-Syrian negotiations to be convened by the United Nations in Geneva on 8 February 2017 and pursuant to resolution 2254,” the statement added.

On Saturday, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted the resolution supporting Russian-Turkish brokered ceasefire in Syria and pointing out importance of the forthcoming talks that will be held in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana.

Since January 1, Ban Ki-moon is not UN Secretary-General anymore with Antonio Guterres assuming the functions of the UN chief.</s>The UN Security Council has unanimously endorsed a ceasefire currently in effect in Syria, as well as plans for peace talks to be held in the Kazakh capital next month.

The resolution, approved late on Saturday, called for the "rapid, safe and unhindered" delivery of humanitarian aid throughout the country.

Russia, which supports Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, brokered the ceasefire with Turkey earlier this week in the hope of paving the way for peace talks in Kazakhstan in the new year.

The truce calls for negotiations over a political solution to end the conflict that has killed more than 400,000 people and forced millions to flee.

READ MORE: Syrian activists languish in government jails

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, praised efforts to end the year with an international agreement for Syria and thanked Turkey for its "substantive contribution".

"It is very important that the Security Council backed these efforts by Russia and Turkey," he said.

Endorsing the resolution "means that if all of us look together to certain objectives rather than to attempt to gain benefit, then we are able to make important decisions".

However, in remarks after the vote, several delegates voiced their concern, saying the agreement contained grey areas and that its implementation was fragile.

Amendments accepted

Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York City, said Russia was forced to accept a number of amendments to see the resolution pass.

"Key among them was that the Russia-Turkey brokered ceasefire was part of a wider UN initiative aimed at restoring political dialogue," he said.

"Russia has made it clear that this resolution is in no way meant to supplant a UN push to start talks in Geneva."

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, has said he intends to bring together representatives of the rival parties for talks in Geneva after February 8.

The truce remained largely intact on Saturday, despite opposition forces accusing Assad loyalists of attacking 33 locations.

Rebel groups threatened to abandon the ceasefire if the government continued its assault on areas under their control.

Rebel leaders told Al Jazeera that Assad's government were trying to take advantage of the situation to further expand its territory.

At least 10 air strikes hit rebel-held villages and towns in the strategically important Wadi Barada valley near Damascus, activists said.

Delicate moment for truce

Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Turkey's Gaziantep near the Syria border, said it was a delicate moment for the ceasefire.

"They [Syrian rebel groups] have sent an urgent appeal to the UN and to Turkey, which is the key player in the ceasefire, to negotiate with the Russians and try to stop the Syria government, warning that if this continues, there will be no option but to resume the fighting," he said.

OPINION: Who are we to say the Syrian revolution is dead?

"The terms of the ceasefire insist that the moment it comes into effect, there should be no military operation, no party should take advantage of it. But the Syrian opposition would need that guarantee, that the guns must fall silent across Syria."

The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-on armed conflict.

Calculating a precise death toll is difficult, partially owing to the forced disappearances of tens of thousands of Syrians whose fates remain unknown.

Almost 11 million Syrians - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes.</s>WASHINGTON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming a ceasefire in the Syrian civil war brokered by Russia and Turkey.

Russia and Turkey announced the ceasefire this week, the third truce this year seeking to end the nearly six years of war in Syria.

The resolution also welcomes plans for talks to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan between the Syrian government and the opposition, ahead of the resumption of U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva in February.

In remarks after the vote, several delegates on the Security Council welcomed the ceasefire but said the agreement contained gray areas and that its implementation was fragile.</s>
• Its formations conduct combat actions in the Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Homs provinces.
• The full name is Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya.
• Formations of the grouping conduct combat actions in the Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Idlib, Latakia, Hama and Homs provinces.
• Jaysh al-Islam formations conduct combat actions in the Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, Latakia, Hama and Homs provinces.
• Armed formations conduct combat actions in the Aleppo, Idlib and Latakia provinces.
• Armed formations conduct combat actions in the Aleppo city and provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.
• The grouping's detachments conduct combat actions in the Aleppo, Idlib and Damascus provinces.

Whilst the Russian-Turkish ceasefire agreement offers the best route to peace in Syria, and in theory gives the Syrian army the space to rebuild and to take the war to Al-Qaeda and ISIS, its success ultimately depends too much on the commitment of Turkish President Erdogan to invest too much hope in its success.As my colleague Adam Garrie has previously reported, on 31st December 2017 the United Nations Security Council unanimously supported Resolution 2336, a Russian drafted Resolution enshrining the Russian-Turkish ceasefire plan for Syria.Before discussing this ceasefire plan in detail, I would briefly say that it is Russia's invariable practice to present documents of this sort to the UN Security Council, and to have them enshrined in a UN Security Council Resolution. A good example is the February 2015 Minsk II agreement, when the Russians did exactly the same thing. They also did the same thing following the abortive Syrian ceasefire agreements they negotiated with US Secretary of State John Kerry in February last year.The reason the Russians act in this way is because firstly it is in their interest and is very much a part of their overall diplomatic strategy- so that they can better use it as a brake to restrain the US -, and plans and agreements enshrined in UN Security Council Resolutions therefore carry the weight of international law. This is potentially important in the event that these plans and agreements are breached, since it means that the party which has breached these plans and agreements is violating international law and is acting illegally.The text of Resolution 2336 is short and cursory, the actual Russian-Turkish ceasefire plan being set out in a series of documents provided by the Russian and Turkish governments to the UN Secretary General and to the President of the Security Council. These documents have not gained wide publicity and are difficult to find, so I herewith set them out in full. I would say that various documents that have up to now appeared in the media (especially in the Middle East media), leaked principally by Turkish sources, and which purport to set out the details of the Russian-Turkish ceasefire plan, were in fact drafts, which were not as of the time of their publication formally agreed. By contrast the text of the documents which I provide below is agreed by the Russian and Turkish governments, and sets out the actual ceasefire plan which the two governments have agreedIn order to get a better understanding of what was agreed, it is also necessary to refer to the Kremlin's summary of a meeting held in the Kremlin on 29th December 2016 by Russian President Putin with Russian Defence Minister Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.Defence Minister Shoigu was the main speaker at the meeting, a fact which incidentally confirms that. On 2nd November 2016 I wrote an article for The Duran in which I pointed out that the Russian and Turkish militaries were in direct negotiation with each other, and that the Russians, having despaired of reaching agreement over Aleppo and Syria with the US, were now negotiating directly with the Turks. Here is what I saidIn the meeting with Putin and Lavrov on 29th December 2016 in the Kremlin Defence Minister Shoigu explained the essence of the Russian-Turkish ceasefire planThe Al-Masdar news agency, which has connections to the Syrian military, has provided a list of the "seven armed opposition groups" that are part of the ceasefire. They are:1. Feilak al-Sham2. Ahrar al-Sham3. Jaysh al-Islam4. Thuwar al-Sham5. Jaysh al-Mujahideen6. Jaysh Idlib7. Jabhat al-ShamiyahNote that the two terrorist groups - Al-Qaeda (aka "Jabhat Al-Nusra" or "Jabhat Fateh al-Sham") and ISIS - are specifically excluded.There is a discrepancy between Shoigu's numbers and those provided by Al-Masdar for the number of Jihadi fighters covered by the ceasefire. Shoigu puts the number at 62,000, whereas Al-Masdar's cumulative total is 51,500. Almost certainly the difference is explained by their different sources of information: Shoigu is taking his numbers from the Turks and the Jihadi groups themselves, whilst Al-Masdar's source is almost certainly the Syrian military.The key point however is not the difference in the numbers but in the fact that, which is delineate the areas controlled by the "moderate" Jihadis so as to distinguish them from the areas controlled by the two proscribed terrorist groups: Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In Shoigu's wordsShoigu's words to Putin also confirm something else which had already become apparent:. Whilst it was these fictional negotiations between Lavrov and Kerry which continued to hold the limelight, the real negotiations were going on behind the scenes between the militaries of Russia and Turkey, without the US being consulted or involved.Moreover it is now clear from Shoigu's words that the Turks made a political decision to come to a settlement with the Russians over Syria by October at the latest, so that the discussions which took place during November and December were of an essentially technical nature: determining what territories the groups that would be covered by the ceasefire actually controlled, getting the groups to sign up to the ceasefire plan, and agreeing the technicalities of monitoring the ceasefire and enforcing it. Most of the ceasefire plan, the text of which I have provided above, sets out the monitoring and enforcement procedures, and confirms that Turkey has agreed to guarantee the compliance of the seven groups who have signed up to it.Turkey's involvement in the ceasefire plan as its guarantor is the key to its success. As I said in my article of 2nd November 2016, the various Jihadi groups which operate in Syria depend on Turkey for their supplies of men and equipment. That gives Turkey immense potential leverage over them, and means thatWhy did the negotiations between Russia and Turkey succeed, where the negotiations between Russia and the US were such a complete failure?From the Russian point of view, the ceasefire has given them what they want. The overriding problem the Russians face in Syria is the limited size of the Syrian army. Since this means that the Syrian army cannot be strong everywhere - the key fact which enabled ISIS to recapture of Palmyra last month - and since deploying Russian ground troops to Syria has been ruled out, Russian diplomacy since Russia's intervention in Syria in September 2015 has been aimed at reducing the number of enemies the Syrian army has to fight so that it can concentrate its forces on its two enemies who are the most dangerous: Al-Qaeda and ISIS.In the meantime, by ensuring that Aleppo - Syria's biggest city and its main industrial centre - is restored to the full control of the Syrian government, the Russians have not only ensured the Syrian government's survival, removing the possibility of regime change from the agenda, but have also provided the Syrian army with a secure base in Syria's populous coastal western regions in which it can rebuild its strength.As for Turkey, with the prospect of regime change in Syria taken off the agenda following the restoration of the Syrian government's authority in Aleppo, the Russian offer of a peace conference in Astana to be co-chaired by Turkeywhich has effectively already failed.The peace conference in Astana is not however just a sop to Turkey. For the Turks a key provision of the ceasefire plan is that any future agreement about the future of Syria to be reached at Astana must be based - in the words of the ceasefire plan - upon "full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic".Will the plan work?If Turkey's commitment to the plan is the condition for its success, it is also its major weakness.As should by now be obvious to anybody who has followed the Syrian conflict at all closely, not only has Turkish President Erdogan been personally committed up to now to achieving regime change in Syria,Is he really prepared now to drop his plan for regime change in Syria, and to crack down on the seven Jihadi groups in Syria covered by the ceasefire if or rather when they try to break it?Since it is upon Erdogan that the future of this ceasefire agreement ultimately depends, it would be unwise to invest too many hopes in it.That the Russians are not doing so is shown by the guarded comments of the participants of the Kremlin meeting on 29th December 2016. Putin pointedly referred to the ceasefire agreement as "fragile", and though the possibility of Russian military withdrawals from Syria was discussed, none were announced.</s>Turkey seeks to upstage US with Syria ceasefire

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks to Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) during their meeting in St Petersburg in thsi file picture taken on August 9, 2016. Turkey brokered a Syria ceasefire deal with Russia which began today. — Reuters picISTANBUL, Dec 30 — By brokering with Russia a ceasefire agreement for Syria, Turkey is hoping to sideline the United States at a time of rising tension and ensure Ankara has a say in its neighbour’s postwar future.

One year ago, it was inconceivable that Turkey and Russia would agree a truce for Syria, with both spitting out venomous accusations over the shooting down by Ankara of a Russian war plane.

But after a reconciliation process of sometimes dizzying speed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have overseen a truce deal welcomed by all sides in the conflict that may lead to peace talks.

Even the December 19 assassination of Russia’s ambassador to Ankara in the heart of the capital failed to derail the process, indeed bringing the two countries closer.

The ceasefire was announced after weeks of talks hosted by Turkey in Ankara between Russian representatives and the Syrian opposition that Turkey worked to support and keep secret.

Previous stabs at a ceasefire have involved Russia and the United States, but on this occasion little effort was made to include Turkey’s NATO ally.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute, said Turkey was acutely aware US President-elect Donald Trump could strike a deal on Syria with Russia shortly after taking office and wanted to get in there first.

“Ankara has seen the writing on the wall that Trump and Putin will have a deal on Syria, and is therefore, working to have its own deal with Putin ahead of the Trump presidency,” he told AFP.

The ceasefire deal with Russia comes at a time when Turkey’s relations with the United States are encountering strains unseen since the Iraq war of 2003.

Whereas Erdogan hailed the Syria ceasefire as a “historic opportunity”, the State Department was less euphoric, calling it “a positive development”.

Turkish officials are livid over US backing for Syrian Kurdish militia groups seen by Ankara as the local branch of the Kurdish militants who are waging a deadly insurgency inside Turkey.

“No development, no regional and global policy since the 1950s shook Turkey-US relations so deeply,” wrote Ibrahim Karagul, editor-in-chief of the pro-Erdogan Yeni Safak daily.

Adding to the frustration, Ankara claims it has received no US military support for Turkey’s own incursion inside Syria aimed at cleansing the border area of jihadists and the Kurdish militia.

The Turkish military and its Syrian rebel allies have for weeks been stuck and taking casualties in the town of Al-Bab where jihadists have offered their fiercest resistance.

With conspicuous timing, the Turkish army today said Russian planes hit IS targets in Al-Bab and south of the city three times for the first time, in apparent support of the Turkish operation.

“Washington has been reticent to extend air support to Turkey’s campaign,” said Cagaptay. “Therefore, Turkey is turning towards Russia.”

Ankara and Moscow had seemed unlikely partners to broker a deal on the Syria conflict, having stood on polar opposite sides since the war began in 2011.

Erdogan has denounced Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a “murderer who has killed 600,000 of his own people” and must be ousted.

Russia is the regime’s chief ally and its intervention in Syria from September 2015 tipped the balance of the conflict against the Turkey-backed rebels.

Yet Ankara remained silent as Assad claimed full control of Aleppo in his most decisive victory of the civil war and worked with Moscow on an evacuation deal.

Erdogan instead stepped up his rhetoric against the United States, even accusing Washington of backing IS jihadists.

With the regime holding the upper hand, Turkey has decided to work with Russia rather than against it to ensure Ankara has a say in the postwar future of Syria, whose land was part of the Ottoman Empire and is still considered to be its backyard.

Erdogan said in a speech on December 22 that Turkey risked being the victim of a new Sevres Treaty—the 1920 agreement that was to partition the Ottoman Empire—if it stood still in the region.

“We are in the biggest struggle since the War of Independence” that ensured the creation of modern Turkey in 1923, Erdogan said.

Turkey’s own incursion in Syria has crucially been aimed not only at Islamic State (IS) jihadists also but also preventing Syrian Kurds establishing a key corridor from Aleppo province into Turkey.

“Turkey’s policy on Assad has suffered a clear defeat,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of the Eurasia Group.

“But Erdogan is still fighting to keep the Syrian Kurds in check and sees cooperation with Putin as the best way to achieve it.” — AFP</s>As the Syria ceasefire deal comes into force, the United Nations Security Council is expected to vote on a Russian resolution endorsing the truce.

The resolution comes against a backdrop of deadlock among the veto-wielding members of the Security Council.

While Russia supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the US, UK and France have insisted that the President must step down as part of any deal to end the war.

The Russian resolution, however, called for rapid access for the delivery of humanitarian aid all over Syria.

BBC said the draft text also supported a political process to end the conflict, with talks between the government and opposition, brokered by Russia and Turkey said to be due in January in Kazakhstan.

The truce, which began barely 48 hours, has held in most places.

But there have been a number of clashes and air strikes while several groups including the Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front are excluded from the ceasefire deal.</s>New York - The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously approved a resolution supporting a Russian-Turkish peace initiative for Syria, including an ongoing ceasefire and talks next month in Kazakhstan.

The resolution aims to pave the way for talks in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana under the aegis of key Syria government backers Russia and Iran, and of rebel supporter Turkey.

The text of the measure "welcomes and supports the efforts by Russia and Turkey to end violence in Syria and jump-start a political process".

The ceasefire, which remained largely intact Saturday in its second day, was brokered by Russia and Turkey, which have been working increasingly closely on Syria.

The truce excludes jihadist groups the Islamic State and former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front.

Turkey and Russia say the Astana talks will supplement, not replace, UN-backed peace efforts, including talks set for February in Geneva.

Washington has been conspicuously absent from the new process but has called the truce "positive."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor of the war, said on Saturday that most of Syria remained calm, despite limited clashes.

The government in Damascus called the ceasefire a "real opportunity" to find a political solution to a war that has claimed more than 310 000 lives.</s>The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting efforts by Russia and Turkey to end the nearly six-year conflict in Syria and jump-start peace negotiations.

The resolution approved Saturday afternoon also calls for the "rapid, safe and unhindered" delivery of humanitarian aid throughout Syria. And it anticipates a meeting of the Syrian government and opposition representative in Kazakhstan's capital Astana in late January.

The resolution's final text dropped an endorsement of the Syria cease-fire agreement reached Thursday, as Western members of the council sought changes to the circulated draft resolution to clarify the U.N.'s role and the meaning of the agreement brokered by Moscow and Ankara.

Meanwhile on the ground in Syria, rebels warned on Saturday that cease-fire violations by pro-government forces threatened to undermine a two-day-old agreement intended to pave the way for talks between the government and the opposition in the new year.

Airstrikes pounded opposition-held villages and towns in the strategically-important Barada Valley outside Damascus, activists said, prompting rebels to threaten to withdraw their compliance with a nationwide truce brokered by Russia and Turkey last week.

Rebels also accused the government of signing a different version of the agreement to the one they signed in the Turkish capital of Ankara, further complicating the latest diplomatic efforts to bring an end to six years of war.

Nearly 50,000 people died in the conflict in 2016, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which maintains networks of contacts on all sides of the war. More than 13,000 of them were civilians, according to the Observatory. Various estimates have put the war's overall toll at around 400,000 dead.

If the truce holds, the government and the opposition will be expected to meet for talks for the first time in nearly a year in the Kazakh capital of Astana in the second half of January. Those talks will be mediated by Russia, Turkey, and Iran.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and Major General Ali Mamlouk, head of the National Security Bureau, were in Tehran Saturday to discuss developments with their Iranian counterparts, according to Iranian state media. They met with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

The Kremlin meanwhile said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani confirmed their commitment to negotiations in Astana, in a phone conversation between the two leaders.

Iran and Russia have provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the conflict, while Turkey has served as a rear base and source of supplies for the opposition.

The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) to vote on a resolution to endorse the cease-fire and the Astana talks, in line with previous agreements mandating a transitional government for Syria.

The resolution also calls for "rapid, safe and unhindered" access to deliver humanitarian aid throughout the country.

The developments follow months of talks between Ankara and Moscow that culminated in a cease-fire agreement that went into effect Friday at midnight.

But in a statement issued by a coalition of 11 rebel factions, including the powerful Army of Islam group operating in the Damascus countryside, rebels said they could not abide by the cease-fire if the government continued its assault on Barada Valley.

The statement also complained that the government's version of the agreement signed in Ankara last week had deleted "a number of essential and non-negotiable points."

It said the opposition had agreed to a cease-fire encompassing the whole of Syria, without any exceptions to region or faction.

The Barada Valley Media Center said Lebanese Hezbollah militants were firing on villages and towns in the water-rich region as Russian and government aircraft carried out raids for the 10th consecutive day Saturday. The Lebanese militant group is a key ally to President Assad's forces.

The Barada Valley is the primary source of water for the capital and its surrounding region. The government assault has coincided with a severe water shortage in Damascus since Dec. 22. Images from the valley's Media Center indicate its Ain al-Fijeh spring and water processing facility have been destroyed in airstrikes. The government says rebels spoiled the water source with diesel fuel, forcing it to cut supplies to the capital.

The Observatory reported at least two civilians and five militants have been killed in battles over opposition-held Eastern Ghouta and Barada Valley regions around Damascus, since the truce came into effect Thursday at midnight.

The Syrian military on Friday denied attacking the valley, saying it respected the Russian and Turkish brokered truce.

Meanwhile, Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported the death of an Islamic State commander in a Turkish airstrike near the north Syrian town of al-Bab on Friday. The truce does not cover operations against the Islamic State group or al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, the Fatah al-Sham front.

Anadolu identified the commander as Abu Ansari. The report could not be independently verified.</s>The UN Security Council has unanimously passed a resolution supporting a ceasefire currently in effect in Syria as well as talks expected to be held next month to end the near six-year civil war.

The text of the measure said it "welcomes and supports the efforts by Russia and Turkey to end violence in Syria and jumpstart a political process."

Russia and Turkey brokered the ceasefire agreement in the hope of preparing the way for peace talks in Kazakhstan in the new year.

The truce, largely intact in its second day, excludes the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.</s>The United Nations Security Council on Saturday voted unanimously to endorse the Syrian cease-fire deal negotiated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey. That agreement was reached Thursday between the Bashar al-Assad regime and Syrian rebel groups who previously controlled parts of the then-besieged city of Aleppo.

The truce is tenuously holding as of Saturday afternoon, though rebels have threatened to break it off if violations continue. "We call on Russia which signed the agreement as a guarantor for the regime and its allies to bear its responsibility," they said.

The U.N. resolution calls for "rapid, safe and unhindered" delivery of humanitarian aid throughout Syria and also endorses scheduled peace talks in Kazakhstan next month. Bonnie Kristian
The United Nations Security Council unanimously votes in favor of the Russian and Turkey-backed ceasefire currently in effect in Syria.