UN Syria envoy says Damascus gave positive signals on Aleppo truce push

The United Nations peace envoy to Syria said on Nov. 11 that Syrian officials had given him positive signals on a U.N. proposal for a local truce in the northern city of Aleppo, a main battleground in Syria's three-year-old war.

Speaking in a news conference in Damascus after meeting President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian foreign minister, Staffan de Mistura said the government's initial response to the proposal "was of interest, and constructive interest."

Assad had also been quoted on Nov. 10 as saying the proposal was worth studying.

De Mistura hopes to institute truces and improve aid access in limited local areas, starting in Aleppo, once Syria's main commercial hub.

"I believe that the proposal of the U.N. regarding one freeze ... for Aleppo, is a concrete and realistic one," he said.

The state news agency said de Mistura and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem agreed to continue consultations on returning stability to Aleppo and easing the passage of humanitarian aid.

Control of Aleppo is divided between an array of rebel and pro-government forces. Neither side has managed to take a decisive advantage in more than two years of fighting.

In a conciliatory gesture to Mistura, the authorities allowed a small convoy of U.N. trucks to bring aid to Homs's besieged rebel-held district of Waer after days of disrupting its entry, a U.N. source said.

Earlier this year, rebels withdrew from Homs's old quarter under a local U.N.-sponsored deal. Mistura visited the city on Monday, and was briefed about the hardships facing thousands of families in Waer, the only part of Homs still held by the opposition.

Mistura told the BBC that the threat to both the government and more moderate...