Tabnak – During the past several days, different anti-terrorist fronts in Syria have witnessed fresh victories for the Syrian Army and its allied forces. Meanwhile, foreign parties involved in the Syrian conflict are preparing for a new round of political talks in Astana.
Iranian news outlet Press TV reports that the Syrian Army and its allies have advanced further against the ISIS terrorist group in the central part of the Arab country.
The joint forces, backed by Russian airpower, have been pushing against the terrorists near the main road linking the cities of Homs and Aleppo in order to secure the road. On Friday, they ousted ISIS from the village of Uqairabat in the area.
The War Media, associated with Lebanese Hezbollah, whose fighters have been helping the Syrian army, said on Saturday that the combined push succeeded in liberating more villages there. The area is currently the scene of intense fighting, the outlet added.
Further to the East, Russia says ISIS is attempting to prevent its last stronghold in Syria from falling back under government control by concentrating forces and heavy weaponry in Dayr al-Zawr.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a Sunday statement that a recent joint push by the Syrian army and Russian air force near the town of Ghanem Ali in Raqqa Province recently slew 800 ISIS terrorists, Russia Today reported on Monday.
Meanwhile at the political level, it was announced that the next round of negotiations between representatives from the Syrian government and foreign-sponsored armed opposition besides delegates from Iran, Russia, and Turkey as mediators will take place between September 14 and 15 in Kazakhstan.
"According to the information from the guarantor states, during the upcoming meeting they plan to review several documents covering the work of de-escalation control forces, and continue work on agreeing the make-up of control forces in Idlib,” the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The statement said that Iran, Russia and Turkey, which serve as guarantor states in the peace process, plan to map out de-escalation zones in Syria’s militant-held northwestern province of Idlib, the central province of Homs and the Eastern Ghouta area outside of the capital Damascus, and exchange viewpoints on other matters such as prisoner exchange.
Kazakhstan’s capital city of Astana has hosted five rounds of peace talks for Syria since January. The negotiations are aimed at bringing an end to the foreign-backed militancy in the violence-battered Arab country, which began in March 2011.
The talks in Astana have been going on in tandem with another series of talks, held in Geneva and brokered by the UN. UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has sought to unify the opposition for a substantive round of negotiations in October, after hosting seven rounds of largely unsuccessful talks in Geneva.
