MOSCOW: US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday a fragile partial truce in Syria had reduced levels of violence there, but that he wanted to see a further reduction as well as greater flows of humanitarian aid.

"It's fair to say three weeks ago there were very very few people who believed a cessation of hostilities was possible in Syria," Kerry told Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, at the start of talks in Moscow.

"The result of that work has produced some progress. There has been a fragile nevertheless beneficial reduction in violence."