MOSCOW. March 3 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian reconciliation center in Syria at the Hmeimim airbase has received notifications of the intention to stop hostilities from 18 commanders of moderate opposition units over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday.
"The total number of signed agreements on ceasefire has reached 44," the ministry said in its daily bulletin.
In the past 24 hours the Center has received application lists on the cessation of warfare from 18 commanders of the moderate opposition units based in Syria's Daraa province.
"As a result, the reconciliation regime has been expanded onto another nine blocks of the town of Daraa," the bulletin says.
Currently, talks are underway with leaders of five armed groups in the provinces of Damascus, Daraa and Homs, it says.
In the past 24 hours, a reconciliation agreement brokered by Russia has been signed by the aldermen of Marzaf, a town in the Hama province, according to the bulletin.
"More than 600 residents, Muslim clerics, Syrian and foreign journalists were present at the signing ceremony," the bulletin says.
Also, leaders of the Jaish al-Islam group that controls the populated area of Ruheibah in the Damascus province, it says, resolved to join the process of cessation of hostilities on Wednesday.