Kerry demands aircraft be grounded to allow Syria aid

US Secretary of State John Kerry called Wednesday for all aircraft over key humanitarian routes in northern Syria grounded in order to facilitate desperately need aid deliveries, days after a relief convoy was hit in an airstrike.

Kerry told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that such a step could restore credibility to efforts to end the five-year civil war and “give a chance for humanitarian assistance to flow unimpeded.”

A US-Russian cease-fire that went into effect nine days ago has all but collapsed. The UN suspended aid deliveries after a strike on a humanitarian convoy this week on Monday.

On Tuesday, Moscow said that neither Russian nor Syrian planes bombed the convoy near Syria’s Aleppo as outrage mounted over the strikes which the Red Cross said killed around 20 people.

“The air forces of Russia and Syria did not conduct any strikes against the UN aid convoy in the southwestern outskirts of Aleppo,” defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

He also said a drone from the US-led coalition was in the area at the time of the strike.

“The evening of September 19 in the sky over that area at a height of 3600 meters and moving at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour there was an attack drone from the international coalition,” Konashenkov said.

The UN said at least 18 trucks in a 31-vehicle convoy were destroyed as they delivered humanitarian assistance to Orum al-Kubra in the Aleppo region.

Russia is flying a bombing campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad, and there are suspicions that either Moscow or the Syrian forces could be responsible.

The Russian military, which is investigating the incident, said that footage from activists at the scene showed damage to the vehicles that did not appear to come from an air strike or “any sort of munitions.”

Washington expressed outrage over the attack, stressing that the convoy’s destination was known to both Damascus and Moscow.

Konashenkov said Russian drones had followed the convoy until it successfully delivered its load, but had stopped surveillance after that.

The deadly incident occurred several hours after Syria’s military declared an end to a week-long truce brokered by the Moscow and Washington earlier this month in an attempt to end the five-year war.

Russia and the United States have persistently blamed each other for not doing enough to bolster the truce.