Orient Net, Jan. 13, 2017 – The opposition parties, who had been holding deliberations and consultations in the Turkish capital Ankara, stipulated on Friday Assad regime and Shiite mercenaries’ commitment to the Syrian ceasefire for 48 hours before they could announce the names of the opposition figures, who would go to the Astana to hold talks. They also stipulated deploying monitors on the front lines, especially in Wadi Barada, to observe the ceasefire and its commitment.

“If these conditions were implemented, the opposition delegation would head to the Astana,” Orient News correspondent Amar Ezz in Ankara said and added those conditions were handed to Moscow by Ankara.

The opposition would never go to Astana before receiving a formal statement by Russia and Turkey, the guarantor states, to implement this mechanism, Orient News correspondent learned from special sources in the opposition.  

The UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday the discussions for the upcoming Astana talks on Syria, with the sponsorship of Turkey and Russia in particular, had been progressing in the “right direction”.

“Astana is something that we have said and will repeat, the UN is supportive of. Particularly when we see that the discussions between the sponsors, Turkey and Russia in particular, with Iran added to it and the Kazakh authorities hosting it, are continuing and progressing, with ups and downs, but progressing in the right direction,” de Mistura told reporters in Geneva following the meeting of the International Syria Support Group’s Humanitarian Access Task Force.

Syria peace talks in Astana are expected to take place on Jan. 23.