Assad tells Iran's Larijani he backs local truces

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad told a top official from key supporter Iran on Sunday that his government is working on "reconciliations" to end the brutal civil war, state news agency SANA said.

His government refers to local truces agreed between troops and rebels in several opposition-held areas as "national reconciliations".

However, Assad also told Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament in Tehran, that Syria will continue to fight "terror" - a term the government has used for its opponents, both armed and peaceful, since the outbreak of a 2011 revolt.

"President Assad emphasised the Syrian people's determination to eradicate terrorism," said SANA, adding that he would also continue to press for "national reconciliations... all over Syrian territory".

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said Monday that Damascus has agreed to allow deliveries of desperately needed medical supplies to opposition-held parts of Aleppo and two other hard-to-reach areas,

"We have gotten all of the approval letters, we are ready to deliver," the UN agency's Syria representative Elizabeth Hoff told AFP.

Deliveries would likely first be made to opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo governorate, Hoff said.

She said she was "very optimistic" that a convoy of several trucks would bring the goods into Aleppo by next week, and that deliveries to the two other areas could happen within a couple of weeks.

In October, UN Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura, announced a plan for a "freeze' in fighting in Syria and has since suggested that the northern city of Aleppo would be a "good candidate" for the strategy.

Since a rebel offensive in the summer of 2012, the city has been divided between government supporters in the west and rebel-held areas in the east.

Last week, Mistura - who replaced Lakhdar Brahimi in July - and his deputy, Razmzi Ezzedine Ramzi, held talks in Damascus and Gaziantep to push for an Aleppo truce.

It was not immediately clear whether Assad, in his statements to Larijani on Sunday, was referring alone to the reconciliations between the Syrian government and various neighbourhoods and suburbs around the country - denounced by some critics as a way the government blackmails communities cut off from food or medical supplies - or also inclusive of Mistura's plan.

Since Mistura's plan was announced, the government has demanded that Aleppo's rebels hand over their weaponry and allow civil servants to return to areas in the government's control while opposition leaders have said they want a guarantee that the government won't use the Aleppo ceasefire to push its military presence elsewhere.

Larijani's visit comes less than a fortnight after Assad met a top Russian envoy who said Moscow is hoping to relaunch peace talks and that it could host a Syria-US meeting.

Russia and Iran are Assad's main allies, supplying him with financial, military and political support in his bid to crush the rebellion.