Syria says deadly U.S. air strikes aim to sink ceasefire plan

Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said on Sunday (September 18) the deadly air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition were aimed at sinking a fragile U.S.-Russia ceasefire plan, escalating tensions over a Syria deal between Moscow and Washington.

“In their opinion, killing a 83 Syrian soldiers, and injuring more than 100, and destroy a Syrian military post, is a simple technical error. And it doesn’t merit any meetings in the Security Council on the issue. That irresponsible and weak answer makes a mockery of the function of the Security Council,” ” said Ja’afari, speaking to regional media on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit on Margarita Island, Venezuela.

He denounced the “violation” of Syrian sovereignty as “very costly.”

Ja’afari’s comments come on the back of Moscow saying the strikes threatened the implementation of the ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State.

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

A United Nations Security Council meeting on the matter will take place “very shortly,” he said in an interview earlier on Sunday with leftist Latin American broadcaster Telesur.

The diplomatic row heated up on the last day of a seven-day ceasefire, marred by a surge of violence as warplanes hit the strategic northern city of Aleppo for the first time since the truce came into effect.