“More than 9,449 terrorists (and members of their families) have evacuated from the eastern part of the city, due to the agreement made for this purpose and thanks to Russian mediation,” Bashar Jaafari told RT.
He then explained why the evacuation stopped amid reports that the Syrian Army blamed militants for violating the evacuation deal.
“Unfortunately, the agreement was violated today by the terrorist groups who took hostages with them and corpses of Syrian Army martyrs while they were exiting the city,” Jaafari said. “(They also) were transferring medium-caliber weapons after dismantling them in violation (of the) agreement.”
The agreement “does not allow them to take with them any prisoners, any hostages, and any corpses of Syrian Army soldiers killed by them – but they did,” the Syrian diplomat explained, adding that only light weapons were supposed to be taken out of the terrorist-occupied areas, but not the heavier arms.
Jaafari estimated that a “couple thousand” of militants that refused to exit the city altogether comprise of “the most radical elements.” He claimed that those belonged to groups “working for Turkish intelligence.”
Moreover, he said, the militants “filmed, took shots of this firing and attributed it to the Syrian Army hitting the civilians as they claimed.”
On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the liberation of eastern Aleppo was completed after the Russian Center for Reconciliation evacuated all militants and members of their families, including women and children, who were willing to leave the city.