Beirut
There are hopes that this peace attempt will work where countless U.S.-backed efforts have failed, in part because the United States is not involved. Russia, which is now the single most influential power in Syria, is taking the lead in the initiative, and President Vladimir Putin has staked his prestige on a successful outcome.
Turkey, which is the other main partner in the process, has far more leverage over the rebels than the United States ever did, above all because it controls the border they depend on for supplies of weaponry.
But continued fighting in the Damascus area marred the first day of the truce, serving as a reminder that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has always been a reluctant party to cease-fire efforts that threaten to interfere with government advances.
Loyalist forces intensified an assault launched last week against Wadi Barada, a rebel-held pocket of territory in the countryside west of Damascus, dropping barrel bombs and firing artillery into the remote, mountainous area, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
There was also continued fighting around the besieged neighborhoods of eastern Damascus, where government forces have been making progress in recent weeks.
“It’s not in Assad’s interests for there to be a cease-fire, because Assad is moving slowly and steadily to secure his control over the Damascus countryside,” said Nicholas Heras of the Center for a New American Security.
The truce is more likely to work, Heras said, in the northern areas of Syria, where the recent victory by loyalist forces over the rebels in Aleppo has tilted the balance of power in favor of the Russian-backed government and given Turkey an incentive to sign onto a deal that preserves its influence along its southern border.
There, and in other parts of the country where the fighting ebbed, Syrians took advantage of the lull to stage anti-government demonstrations. Such protests were held every Friday in the early days of the uprising against Assad’s rule but were abandoned after the government started targeting the protests with airstrikes.
The cease-fire is just one step in a wider initiative sponsored by Russia and Turkey that aims to bring the factions together for peace talks next month in the city of Astana, capital of the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan.
The broad outlines of the peace proposal differ little from similar efforts launched last year by the United States, which envisaged that a cease-fire would be followed by peace talks in Geneva.
As was the case with the U.S.-backed efforts, details of the Russian plan remain vague. It is still unclear what kind of settlement Moscow is hoping will emerge from the process, who will attend the talks and, most significantly, whether rebels who wield power on the ground will be invited.
Rebel groups are assuming they will be included, and most have decided for now to throw their support behind the process, said Yasser al-Youssef of the rebel group Noureddine al-Zinki, one of the groups that did not sign the cease-fire agreement but has nonetheless decided to support it.