29 December 2016•Update: 30 December 2016
By Diyar Guldogan
ANKARA
President Vladimir Putin confirmed on Thursday a cease-fire agreement in Syria had been reached under guarantees from Russia and Turkey.
"Peace talks are ready to begin," Putin was quoted as saying by the country’s official TASS news agency.
His remarks came in Moscow during a meeting with Russia's foreign and defense ministers. Putin said three documents had been signed.
The first was the cease-fire deal between the Syrian government and armed opposition groups. The second was measures to monitor the cease-fire, and the third was the declaration of "readiness" to start peace talks on a settlement.
Putin said Russia, Iran, and Turkey’s Dec. 20 trilateral meeting in Moscow saw all three countries committing themselves to be “guarantors” of any peace process settlement in Syria.
The president described the agreement on Syria as "fragile" and said "a lot of work" had been done in collaboration with Turkish partners.
Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu also confirmed that the cease-fire will come into force in a matter of hours, on Dec. 30 at 12 midnight local time (2200GMT Thursday).
Shoigu said the ministry had established a "hotline" to continue contact with Turkey on the cease-fire.
He said for the past two months the ministry has had talks with the leaders of Syrian opposition groups under Turkish mediation.
Shoigu said the seven "most influential" commanders of the opposition attended the talks. He added that the agreement covers about 62,000 armed groups which together control most of central and northern Syria.
Shoigu said "all" conditions for the cessation of hostilities between the Syrian government and opposition had been created.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry released a list of opposition groups that will join the cease-fire.
The groups were Faylaq al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Suvar agi-Sham, Jaysh al-Mujahidin, Jaysh Idlib and Jabhat al-Shamiyah.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia is considering inviting Egypt to the Syria negotiations, adding that Putin and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi spoke on the phone Thursday.
Lavrov said Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, and Jordan could also be invited.
He added that he hoped U.S. President-elect Donald Trump would also join the peace talks for "collective" cooperation.
Putin said on Dec. 23 that Russia, Turkey, and Iran had agreed to an earlier proposal to bring together representatives of the Syrian regime and opposition in Kazakhstan.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has expressed his "readiness" to provide a platform for talks in Astana to solve the long-standing crisis.
Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests – which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings – with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-torn country, according to the UN.
