Efforts to save Syrian truce shift to Moscow

Moscow (AFP) - Efforts to salvage Syria's ceasefire were to shift to Moscow on Tuesday as the country's second city of Aleppo reeled from a week of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians.

A day after US Secretary of State John Kerry launched a desperate push in Geneva to breathe life into the stuttering truce, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was to meet the UN envoy Staffan de Mistura in the Russian capital.

The two-month old ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia is under severe threat and Kerry said on Monday that Washington and Moscow had made progress in trying to contain the bloodshed.

Kerry gave some of his most downbeat comments yet after meeting de Mistura in Geneva, saying the conflict was "in many ways out of control and deeply disturbing".

The US and Russia have agreed to bolster the number of Geneva-based ceasefire monitors, Kerry told reporters, pledging to work "in the next hours" to rein in violence on the ground.

In and around Aleppo, a week of fighting has killed more than 250 people.

Kerry accused President Bashar al-Assad's regime of deliberately targeting three clinics and a major hospital last week.

"The attack on this hospital is unconscionable," he said. "And it has to stop."

There was a relative lull in the unrest later Monday, allowing some residents to venture out into the streets, AFP's correspondents in Aleppo said, with some even opening up shops.

Greengrocer Abu Nazem said he had not worked all of last week out of fear of air raids.

"I decided to come back to work today but despite the calm I am still afraid. Sometimes I hear motorbikes going past and I dive for cover because I think it's a military plane," he told AFP.

Kerry said a bolstered group of ceasefire monitors will track violations "24 hours a day, seven days a week."

A senior US diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US, Russia and the UN have moved forward on a new ceasefire mechanism for Aleppo, but a deal was not complete.