Syria conflict: US and Russia to resume talks on Saturday

The US and Russia have announced that they will resume talks on Syria, which broke down earlier this month.

Washington broke off all negotiations with Moscow nine days ago amid extreme tension over failure to secure a truce.

But Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will now meet his US counterpart John Kerry and other key regional powers in Switzerland on Saturday.

The announcement comes after two days of renewed air strikes on Aleppo, killing at least 75 people.

The US State Department said Mr Kerry would discuss a "multilateral approach" to ending the crisis, "including a sustained cessation of violence and the resumption of humanitarian aid deliveries."

The key regional powers, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran are also expected to attend the talks in Lausanne.

Mr Kerry will follow his talks in Switzerland with a trip to London on Sunday.

The UN has appealed for a halt to the violence to allow aid into the besieged territory.

On Wednesday, at least 15 people, including children, were killed in an air strike on a marketplace in a rebel-held part of the Syrian city of Aleppo, activists say.

The strike was one of 25 in the rebel-held east on Wednesday that left a total of 25 people dead, they added.

Government forces, backed by Russian warplanes, launched an all-out assault to take control of Aleppo last month.

The Syria Civil Defence, whose rescuers are known as the White Helmets, said a number of women and children were at the market in the Fardous area when it was hit.

Video purportedly showing rescuers coming under attack from the air as they tried to rescue the injured was also shared on social media by pro-opposition activists.

Aleppo, once Syria's largest city and the country's commercial and industrial hub, has been divided roughly in two since 2012, with President Bashar al-Assad's forces controlling the west and rebel factions the east.

On 4 September, government forces re-imposed a siege on the east, where about 275,000 people live, and launched a major offensive to retake it after the collapse of a truce brokered by the United States and Russia.

Since then, the bombardment has killed more than 300 people, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Western powers - who back the opposition to Mr Assad - have alleged the Syrian and Russian air forces are committing war crimes by using bunker-busting bombs to destroy underground shelters, dropping incendiary weapons indiscriminately, and targeting the city's water supplies.

The government and Russia have denied the charges and blamed rebel fighters for operating in residential areas.