Turkey and Russia have agreed on a draft nationwide ceasefire in Syria, the Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported Wednesday.
The report cited a source saying that Ankara and Moscow would try to bring the ceasefire in effect at midnight. Terror groups would be excluded from the agreement, it said.
If the ceasefire succeeds, the regime and the opposition parties will start political negotiations led by Turkey and Russia in Astana, Kazakhstan.
It was not immediately clear if any of the Syrian rebel groups have agreed to the ceasefire plan.
The ceasefire draft comes six days after Syrian regime forces regained control of the key city of Aleppo — a major turning point in the country’s civil war that has raged for nearly six years and has killed an estimated 400,000 people.
Tens of thousands of civilians and rebels were evacuated from the city’s east under several deals brokered by Turkey and Russia.
Rebels had held eastern Aleppo for more than four years, and losing the territory has made a military an political opposition to the Assad regime less likely, analysts have said.
After the regime seized Aleppo, Russian President Vladimir Putin had said that a nationwide ceasefire was the next step in resolving the war.
Russia has been the closest and most powerful ally of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. It has carried out airstrikes against rebel groups opposed to the leader’s regime since September 2015.
