Syria envoy says deadly U.S. air strikes aim to sink truce

By Deisy Buitrago MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela (Reuters) - Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said on Sunday deadly air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition were aimed at sinking a fragile U.S.-Russia ceasefire plan, escalating tensions over a Syria deal between Moscow and Washington. "The aim of the aggression is to make the ceasefire between Russia and the United States fail," said Ja'afari, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit on Margarita Island, Venezuela. Ja'afari's comments come on the back of Moscow saying the strikes threatened the implementation of the ceasefire plan for Syria and bordered on connivance with Islamic State. The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit. Denouncing a "violation" of Syrian sovereignty that is "very costly," Ja'afari said the U.S.-led strikes had killed 83 soldiers and injured over 100 in what could not be a "technical error." A United Nations Security Council meeting on the matter will take place "very shortly," he said in an interview earlier on Sunday with leftist Latin American broadcaster Telesur. The diplomatic row heated up on the last day of a seven-day ceasefire, marred by a surge of violence as warplanes hit the strategic northern city of Aleppo for the first time since the truce came into effect. (Reporting by Deisy Buitrago, Alexandra Ulmer and Girish Gupta; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by James Dalgleish)