With his forces on the cusp of victory over rebels in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says the fight will continue until the five-year-old conflict is over.

Assad made the vow in an interview published Thursday in the state-owned newspaper al-Watan, one day after Syria’s Russian-backed army gained control over three-quarters of Aleppo’s Old City, which had been under rebel control since 2012.

Assad said a victory in Aleppo would not mean an end to the war, but represents a huge step towards that end.

The president also rejected any thoughts of a truce in Aleppo, as long as the rebels remain in the city. Rebel forces have proposed a five-day cease-fire to ensure the humanitarian evacuation of civilians, promising to discuss the future of Aleppo once that had been achieved.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it had evacuated about 150 civilians in need of urgent medical care from a hospital in the Old City. “Many of them cannot move and need special attention and care,” ICRC spokeswoman Marianne Gasser told reporters.

Tens of thousands of civilians are thought to be trapped in eastern Aleppo despite a huge surge of refugees fleeing in the past two weeks for the relative safety of government-controlled western districts. Monitors last week estimated that 18,000 civilians in the east had moved into western neighborhoods and more than 9,000 others into a Kurdish-controlled district.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will hold another round of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Hamburg, Germany Thursday, after failing to come to a resolution on the matter Wednesday. The Associated Press quotes Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Serge Ryabkov as saying Moscow and Washington are close to reaching a deal on a cease-fire in Aleppo.

The United States, along with Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain, called Wednesday for an immediate cease-fire in Aleppo and condemned Russia for interfering with attempts to bring humanitarian aid to those civilians trapped in the Syrian city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors and reports on Syria’s civil war, says 369 civilians have been killed in the offensive on east Aleppo, including 45 children. Another 92 civilians — including 34 children — were killed by rebel shelling on government-held west Aleppo.

U.N. special envoy Stefan de Mistura said last week he expected eastern Aleppo to fall to government forces by the end of December, without a negotiated settlement to end the four-year rebel occupation.
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