Syria closes in on last rebel enclave in Aleppo, lets UN beef up monitoring

AsSyrian President Bashar al-Assad's army closed in on the last rebel enclave in Aleppo on Tuesday, Russia, Iran and Turkey said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal.

The Syrian army used loudspeakers to broadcast warnings to insurgents that it was poised to enter their rapidly diminishing area during the day and told them to speed up their evacuation of the city.

Complete control of Aleppo would be a major victory for Assad against rebels who have defied him in Syria's most populous city for four years.

Earlier Tuesday the Syrian government authorised the United Nations to send an additional 20 staff to east Aleppo, where they will monitor the ongoing evacuation of thousands of people, a UNspokesman said.

"The task is to monitor and observe the evacuations," Jens Laerke told a news briefing in Geneva.

The UNSecurity Council called unanimously Monday for UNofficials and others to observe the evacuation of people from the last rebel-held enclave in Aleppo and monitor the safety of civilians who remain in the Syrian city.

The UNstaff, composed of national and international staff already in its Damascus office, will travel to Aleppo "as soon as possible,"Laerke said.

Some 25,000 people have been evacuated from the rebel-held enclave of Aleppo since Thursday, including 15,000 on Monday and 10,000 last Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday.

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Laerke said that UNaid partners checking people arriving in Idlib province put the figure at 19,000.

"We do not have independent UNaccess to the buses, so we are not able to enter and access people; that does not take away from the protection concerns that we do have and continue to have," he added.

Some 43 people were medically evacuated from east Aleppo on Monday, bringing the total to 301 such evacuations since last Thursday, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said. "Out of those 301, 93 patients were referred to hospitals in Turkey, others are in hospitals in Idlib and (opposition-held) western rural Aleppo," he said.

The vast majority have trauma injuries, and the sick and wounded include 67 children, he added.

The UNrefugee agency UNHCR said there was no sign of a heavy influx of people fleeing Aleppo into neighbouring Turkey.

"All the borders of Syria are very tightly managed at present. People, we understand, are being allowed to cross into Turkey when they come. But I think this is speculative as we are not yet seeing people move across in relation to Aleppo," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said.

Some 750 people have been evacuated from the two besieged Syrian villages of Foua and Kefraya so far, where 20 buses headed to early on Tuesday morning, Laerke said.

Foreign ministers gather in Moscow

Ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey adopted a document they called the "Moscow Declaration"Tuesday, which set out the principles that any peace agreement should follow.

At talks in the Russian capital, they also backed an expanded ceasefire in Syria.

"Iran, Russia and Turkey are ready to facilitate the drafting of an agreement, which is already being negotiated, between the Syrian government and the opposition, and to become its guarantors," the declaration said.

The move underlines the growing strength of Moscow's links with Tehran and Ankara, despite the murder on Monday of Russia's ambassador to Turkey, and reflects Russian President Vladimir Putin's desire to cement his influence in the Middle East and beyond.

Russia and Iran back Assad while Turkey has backed some rebel groups.

Putin said last week that he and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan were working to organise a new series of Syrian peace negotiations without the involvement of the United States or the United Nations. For his part, U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura intends to convene peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 8.

"The approval of the declaration at the level of defence and foreign ministers implies our readiness to guarantee and jointly address concrete questions related to resolve [the crisis in]Syria."

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