Iran says it has joint headquarters with Moscow in Syria

The compromise was hammered out by France and Russian Federation, which both initially issued competing resolutions on Aleppo to the U.N. Security Council.

Rami Aburrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said 17,000 civilians and 5,000 fighters have left; the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has overseen the evacuations, said 25,000 have left; and the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s figure is 37,000.

“All three have dismal records when is come to protecting civilians”, Charbonneau said.

Despite the hitch, celebrations appeared to be taking place in the government-held west of Aleppo, where hundreds of people have also been killed by rebel shelling and mortar fire.

But it changed its tune, effectively accepting Assad’s continued hold on power.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the last rebels and civilians continued to pour out of the embattled city of Aleppo. The ceasefire repeatedly collapsed and resumed over the weekend as reports emerged of delays, and of militants attacking relief workers.

According to Shoigu, all previous “attempts to agree on joint efforts undertaken by the U.S. or their partners were doomed”. Some observers believe that Russian Federation, in exchange for acceptance of Assad, has allowed Turkey to launch a military campaign against Kurds in northern Syria.

Aleppo was once Syria’s largest city, and its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011. “We are not excluded, we are not being sidelined”, he added.

But Jaafari said his government will abide by the resolution and denied that it had blocked access in the past to United Nations officials.

“We have had for several days already a monitoring mechanism”.

He shouted in Turkish, “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria”. “We feel in solidarity with Syrians, we know what they are through and we feel it and we want to be with them and we condemn all these actions”. In what appeared to be a separate incident, a man fired shots near the entrance of the USA embassy in Ankara overnight.

The foreign and defense ministers from Russia, Turkey and Iran are meeting in Moscow Tuesday for key talks on the conflict in Syria.

“It is not a miracle meeting, but will give all sides a chance to listen to each other”, the official said. A State Department official said that no one was hurt. “We let our differences with Turkey over the Kurds and our views over the northern part of Syria create gaps that the Russians have exploited”.

The presidents of Russian Federation and Iran, both allied with the Assad government, spoke by telephone Monday to discuss a likely meeting in the near future of all parties to the Syrian conflict, which began as peaceful protests against Assad and devolved into a civil war that has killed 400,000 people.

This has forced civilians and rebel fighters wanting to be evacuated to stand outside in harsh winter conditions or take shelter inside nearby damaged buildings, according to activists and journalists on the ground.