Russian air strikes around the Syrian city of Aleppo have almost exclusively targeted opponents of the Syrian president rather than Daesh militants, and were partly responsible for Wednesday's pause in peace talks, the State Department said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby told a briefing the strikes around Aleppo had led to reports of more civilian casualties, displacement of Syrian citizens and the possible obstruction of humanitarian assistance routes.

"It is difficult in the extreme to see how strikes against civilian targets contribute in any way to the peace process now being explored," Kirby told reporters. Kirby said the U.N. special envoy had paused the Geneva peace talks in part because of the disruption of humanitarian aide and civilian deaths.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura announced the three-week pause less than a week after formally opening them on Friday but both sides denied they had ever begun.

He reiterated the longstanding U.S. appeal for Russian forces to "focus their military energy" in Syria on Daesh militants and "not on the opposition or on innocent civilians."

Source: MENA