A look at proposed cease-fire set to begin in Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that the agreement has already allowed five or six Syrian communities to receive 114 trucks carrying assistance and that 80,000 people now have supplies for a month that they did not have a week ago.

The truce is needed before U.N.-led peace talks can resume in Geneva. Indirect talks earlier this month quickly collapsed because of increased violence and a Russian-backed government offensive in Aleppo, near the Turkish border.

Even if Syria’s warring factions stop fighting, it’s unclear if they will agree to implement the political process that is supposed to follow the cease-fire. The process calls for elections in six months, but the role of Syrian President Bashar Assad and whether he will take part is not spelled out.

Kerry said the cease-fire is an opportunity to test the seriousness of Assad and his Russian allies to implement elections and an inclusive government. And if that doesn’t happen, the United States will consider other options, Kerry said. He said the opposition will not stop fighting if Assad does not leave office.

What if it doesn’t?

If the cease-fire doesn’t hold, the political process doesn’t proceed, and the fighting could get worse. More than a dozen countries have sent armies and militias to fight in Syria.

“If they’re not serious then we’re going to have come here and talk about whatever a Plan B is going to be,” Kerry said Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Recent gains made by Syrian Kurds against the Islamic State has also raised tensions with Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbor, which has fought for decades against a Kurdish separatist insurgency.

While the U.S. supports those Kurds in their fight against the Islamic State, Turkey, a NATO ally, considers many of the Syrian Kurdish militia to be terrorist organizations tied to that insurgency, Kerry said.

“Going forward we have to be very careful a different problem is not created by our short-term interest in working with the Kurds against ISIS,” he said.