Truce, Ceasefire or Armistice?

The cessation of hostilities came into effect across Syria at 00:00 Damascus time on Saturday (22:00 GMT on Friday). Clearly, the guns are unlikely to suddenly fall silent and fighting in some form will persist in Syria. Given these realities, it is worth taking stock of the different arrangements involved in de-escalating a conflict, and their relevance for Syria.

A truce is suggestive of an ad-hoc arrangement, arrived at by the combatants, to pause the fighting. Formal negotiations do not necessarily need to take place. Rather, mutual exhaustion after a particularly intensive period of fighting might lead the combatants to temporarily suspend their military operations…

As recently as December, a local truce was agreed between the Syrian government and embattled rebels in Homs and to allow a partial evacuation from the western suburb of al-Wair. A cessation of hostilities is more formal than a truce. However, it is still some way from a formal ceasefire. A cessation of hostilities means that the combatants are willing to stop fighting and to restrain their forces.

But it only loosely commits them to further steps. Given the complexity of the conflict in Syria, this is the most realistic outcome that diplomats will have been able to secure… A formal ceasefire is a negotiated agreement that will be accompanied by other associated commitments to de-escalate the fighting.

This might mean possible commitments by the warring parties to reposition their forces in a way that accords with safe zones, demilitarised zones or a clearly demarcated line of separation. This is extremely difficult to achieve if the battlefield picture remains fluid, as it has been in Syria. An armistice is a formal agreement by the combatants to end hostilities, with efforts to negotiate a lasting peace settlement following in its wake.

An armistice is a legally binding agreement. Examples in history include the armistices that ended the world wars. However, these were agreements between warring states. In Syria, questions of legal equivalence between the factions would likely hamper any moves towards an armistice.

The government of Bashar al-Assad faces numerous factions of a domestic insurgency, to which it would be resistant to conferring any sense of legal equivalence. (Courtesy: BBC; Explanation by Dr Samir Puri is a lecturer in international relations at the Department of War Studies, King's College London)