Mediators say ceasefire monitors will deploy before winter, if roads stay open
A 40-person civilian mission is packed and waiting on a neighbouring airfield, but local commanders have not yet guaranteed safe passage along the only all-weather road.
The monitoring team has been in a holding pattern for eleven days. Equipment is palletised. Interpreters are on contract. What is missing, mediators say, is a written assurance that checkpoints will not stop the convoy after dark.
A senior envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity because talks are closed, said both sides privately accept the idea of monitors and publicly refuse to be first to say so.
Winter in the high valleys arrives early. If the mission is not on the ground by next month, snow will do what politics has not: freeze the map in place until spring.
