The State Department on Monday refused to describe how many violations of the ceasefire in Syria have occurred since Friday, and said State would not be in the business of telling reporters how many violations have taken place in the days ahead.
“I’m not going to get into a daily readout and discussion of each and every airstrike and each and every claim,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“I don’t,” Kirby added when asked if he had a specific number of violations. “And I’m not going to, today or any other day, get into numeric judgment here on violations of the cessation.”
He spoke just hours after a wave of new reports said at least a dozen violations took place, even though the ceasefire was due to start on Friday. Those reports said Syrian and Russian forces violated the truce, and one report said the ceasefire was “quickly unraveling.”
The Obama administration sought the truce after Syrian opposition groups said they couldn’t participate in a discussion over new political leadership in Syria while simultaneously being bombed by the Russians.
The White House on Monday called the violations “potholes,” and State similarly tried to downplay them by saying some violations were expected.
“We said from the beginning that this was going to be hard, and I think everybody understood that there were going to be, and that we expected that there would be, since the beginning of it, reports of it being violated,” Kirby said. “And so we’ve seen that, as I’ve said, particularly in the north, we want these claims to be evaluated and to be reviewed so we can all better understand it.”
Kirby said the administration is pleased that violence was notably reduced over the weekend, but said that “doesn’t diminish our concern over the reports of violations.”
