MOSCOW: Russian-led peace talks on Syria will be held on Jan.30 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia’s chief negotiator Aleksandr Lavrentyev said Saturday, quoted by Interfax news agency.

Russia, a steadfast supporter of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, is set to co-host the summit with regime ally Iran and rebel backer Turkey with the aim of setting up a new constitution for post-war Syria.

Organisers had said earlier that the peace talks were planned for Jan.29 and 30, but Lavrentyev said that the participants would arrive on Jan.29 and “the forum itself will take place on January 30.”

Diplomats from Russia, Turkey and Iran have been holding discussions on how to organise the talks behind closed-doors in a Sochi hotel, Russian news agencies reported.

“I consider the meeting went well. We managed to agree on lists of participants of the forum,” Lavrentyev said.

He said invitations would be sent within a few days, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in New York on Friday that Moscow had invited around 1,500 representatives of the Syrian people “including sheikhs, tribal leaders and representatives of civil society.”

The talks will come after the latest round of UN-sponsored negotiations in Geneva ended in failure in December.

“We want to launch the process of political settlement in order to breath life into the Geneva process,” Lavrentyev said.

The January talks were announced during negotiations in Kazakhstan in December sponsored by powerbrokers Russia, Turkey and Iran. A joint statement said the congress would include “all segments of Syrian society.”

The Syrian army and allied forces captured Abu Al Duhur airport in Idlib province from insurgents on Saturday, a Hizbollah military media unit said.

They had pushed into the military air base hours earlier, pressing their offensive in Syria’s largest rebel stronghold, said the media unit run by Lebanese militant group.

The United Nations itself will host a new round of peace talks on Syria next week in Vienna.

The war has displaced millions of people and is estimated to have claimed the lives of at least 340,000 people since 2011.