U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry aounced Thursday night that diplomats meeting in Munich have agreed to work with Syrian parties to implement a "nationwide cessation of hostilities."
Kerry said that the target is to implement the cease-fire in a week's time but that it would not apply to the Islamic State group and the extremist al-Nusra Front.
U.S., Russia and other world powers agreed to “accelerate and expand” the delivery of humanitarian aid immediately, bringing much needed aid to areas hit hard by the violence.
A working group is to start meeting in Geneva Immediately to oversee that.
Thursday's meeting of the Inteational Syria Support Group brought together representatives of regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Iran and European officials.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said everyone's who is needed to make progress is there.
Steinmeier said diplomatic efforts to tame Syria's civil war are at a crossroads and talks need to produce some kind of breakthrough.
"If we don't succeed in breaking the spiral of violence and counter-violence now, this terrible civil war will drag on even longer,” he said.
The U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein described the worsening situation around Aleppo as "grotesque," and has waed that up to 300,000 people are at risk of being besieged.
He added that 51,000 civilians have been displaced since the Syrian govement's latest offensive on Aleppo, Syria's largest city, began last week.
Zeid also points out reports of "numerous airstrikes by Russian and Syrian aircraft" there.
He adds that "the warring parties in Syria are constantly sinking to new depths, without apparently caring in the slightest about the death and destruction they are wreaking across the country."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.