Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally, to seek a comprehensive agreement on resolving the Syrian conflict.
Now that Syrian state forces backed by Russia have managed to take over the major city of Aleppo, the Syrian government should focus on the peace process, Putin said in a telephone call, the Kremlin reported on Friday.
A battalion of Russian military police has been sent Aleppo to serve as a peacekeeping force in support of the local authorities, the Russian Defence Ministry said Friday.
Meanwhile, Syrian government troops and allied paramilitaries were combing eastern Aleppo for potential explosives left behind by rebel fighters a day after mass evacuations from the enclave were completed, a monitoring group said.
The forces were defusing landmines in a number of neighbourhoods in eastern Aleppo after the last opposition fighters and residents left the area late Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.
The week-long evacuation has given forces of al-Assad full control over Aleppo that had been divided between his regime and the opposition since 2012.
Following the completion of the eastern Aleppo evacuation, al-Assad's supporters took to the streets of several Syrian cities celebrating what they called "victory in Aleppo", according to Syria's state news agency SANA.
Rebel defences in eastern Aleppo, their last foothold in a major urban centre, collapsed in late November after a five-month siege by government forces aided by Russian military power.
Putin said earlier on Friday that the recapture of Aleppo was the most important part of stabilising Syria.
"The liberation of Aleppo from radical elements is the most important component of full normalisation in Syria, and, I hope, in the region as a whole," Putin said at a meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to state news agency TASS.
The liberation has involved the "decisive participation and influence of our (Russian) military personnel," Putin added.
In September 2015, Russia started an air campaign in Syria in support of al-Assad, saying its intervention was aimed at extremists there.
