Talks are now under way about a ceasefire and humanitarian access for civilians in the five-year-old Syrian civil war and it will be clear within days whether that is possible, US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.
“The modalities of a ceasefire itself are also being discussed and the Russians have made some constructive ideas about how a ceasefire in fact could be implemented,” Kerry told reporters.
“But if it’s just talks for the sake of talks in order to continue the bombing, nobody is going to accept that, and we will know that in the course of the next days.”
Meanwhile, the Syrian regime’s army, backed by Russian air-strikes, has pressed ahead with a major attack in the northern province of Aleppo, forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee to the Turkish border.
Iran reported one of its generals had been killed on the front line, giving direct confirmation of the role Tehran is playing along with Moscow in what appears to be one of the most determined offensives in five years of civil war.
The government assault around Aleppo, and advances in the south and northwest, helped to torpedo the latest Geneva peace talks.  
The last two days saw government troops and their Lebanese and Iranian allies fully encircle the countryside north of Aleppo and cut off the main supply route linking the city - Syria’s largest before the war - to Turkey. Ankara said it suspected the aim was to starve the population into submission.
Video footage showed thousands of people massing at the Bab al-Salam crossing on the Turkish border. Men carried luggage on their heads, and the elderly and those unable to walk were brought in wheelchairs. Women sat on the side of the road holding babies and waiting to be allowed into Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said 15,000 people fleeing Aleppo had arrived at Turkey’s border.
Rights group Amnesty International urged the country to let in those fleeing the latest violence.
“It feels like a siege of Aleppo is about to begin,” said David Evans, Middle East programme director for the US aid agency Mercy Corps, which said the most direct humanitarian route to Aleppo had been severed.
“The situation in Aleppo is a humanitarian catastrophe,” said an opposition spokesman still in Geneva after the ill-fated peace talks. “The international community must take urgent, concrete steps to address it.”