Parties to the Syrian peace talks in Astana have yet to agree on face-to-face meetings between the delegations of the Damascus government and rebel groups, Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Roman Vassilenko said on Monday. Speaking just hours ahead of the negotiations, Vassilenko said the...

By Hassan Hassan (The National)- Peace talks between representatives of the Syrian regime and the rebels are scheduled to take place today in Astana, the Kazakh capital. These Russian-sponsored talks were made possible by the expulsion of the rebels from eastern Aleppo on December 23....

(Al-Jazeera)- A letter from a young woman to her fallen husband, a pro-Assad fighter in Syria, was recently published in Tasnim News, one of Iran's most prominent news agencies affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). "This shrine [the Zaynab shrine] is sacred ... I am...

(The Guardian)- Key parties in Syria’s brutal civil war, now stretching towards the end of its sixth year, will meet in the Kazakh capital of Astana this week for a new round of peace talks. Organised by Russia and Turkey, and backed by Iran, these are the latest in many attempts to...