US President Barack Obama made a plea on Sunday for warring parties in Syria to return to peace talks and "reinstate" a ceasefire, as he defended a refusal to establish a safe zone in the country, AFP reports.
"I spoke to (Russian) President Vladimir Putin early last week to try to make sure that we could reinstate the cessation of hostilities," he told a news conference in Germany, as an increasingly troubled ceasefire was threatened by regime and rebel bombardments that claimed 26 lives Sunday.
Obama also argued that establishing a safe zone "is not a matter of an ideological objection on my part" but that "as a practical matter, sadly, it is very difficult to see how it would operate short of us essentially being willing to militarily take over a big chunk of that country."