Russian President Vladimir Putin reached a deal with Syria and the opposition rebels and announced a ceasefire starting at midnight on Thursday.
Putin said that all the parties involved in the war hostilities were ready to begin peace talks, after Iran, Turkey and Russian expressed readiness to come to a deal to stop the civil war in the nation that has been going on for almost six years.
Although a nationwide ceasefire was announced in Syria, the army said that fighters from militant organisations like Islamic State group (ISIS), former Nusra Front militants and all the other groups associated with them will be excluded from the deal.
A spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army, allied to the opposition rebel group, said that it would stand by the proposed ceasefire and they were willing to participate in future peace talks about brokering a truce deal.
The proposed ceasefire is the third such deal of putting a halt to the fighting among all groups involved in the civil war. Reports state that the last two ceasefires, which were negotiated by the United States and Russia, had collapsed within weeks as both the sides accused each other of violating the deal. The ceasefire deal now proposed has been brokered by Russia and US and the United Nations are not involved in it.
Thousands of people were evacuated from war-hit Aleppo as the Bashar al-Assad led Syrian regime gained control over most of the rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo, in a major win to the Assad government.
The ceasefire has come in place after the major parties involved in the war — Russia, Iran and Turkey — last week said that they were ready to back peace deal in the nation. The Russian leader said that the Syrian government and the rebels had signed various documents including the agreement of ceasefire and the readiness to initiate peace talks between them.
“The agreements reached are, of course, fragile, need a special attention and involvement… But after all, this is a notable result of our joint work, efforts by the defence and foreign ministries, our partners in the regions,” Putin said.
