US supporting Nusra Front terrorists: Syria

Nusra using Aleppo residents as a shield 

Militants of al-Nusra Front, recently renamed as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, are using civilians in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo as human shields amid government operations in the area, Ja’afari said.

Al-Nusra is “using them as human shields and preventing them from getting out of the eastern part of Aleppo through the four humanitarian corridors opened by both the Russians and Syrian army,” he said.

On July 28, the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria and Syrian government forces set up a number of humanitarian corridors in Aleppo in a bid to allow aid deliveries and safe exit for those willing to leave the divided city.

‘Ready for peace’

Ja’afari further stressed that the Damascus government is prepared to cooperate with related parties on the restoration of lasting peace in the country.

“We are ready to go for a political settlement. We went to Geneva, we went to Moscow, we went everywhere for a political settlement. However, it should be a Syrian-Syrian settlement, it should be political, it should be without any foreign interference,” he said.

The Syrian conflict, which flared up in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to an estimate by UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

Ja’afari said the conflict in Syria has “a rather geopolitical dimension.”

“This is what Moscow got from the beginning, this is what Beijing got from the beginning, this is what Tehran got from the beginning. The issue is much much bigger,” he said.