UK urges Russia to stop Syria airstrikes

Britain calls on Russia to stop its aerial bombing in Syria and use its influence on President Bashar Assad to get a cease-fire and access for humanitarian aid — demands that Moscow approved in a Security Council resolution in December.

Britain’s UN envoy Matthew Rycroft tells reporters that progress on those issues would get a Thursday meeting in Munich of nations trying to end the conflict “off to a more productive start.”

He speaks Wednesday, ahead of a Security Council meeting on Syria.

France’s UN Ambassador Francois Delattre stresses that improving the humanitarian situation “is the condition for a credible political negotiation.”

He says “the regime and its allies cannot pretend that they are extending a hand to the opposition while with their other hand they are trying to destroy them.”

— AP