SYRIAN President Bashar Assad says his government is determined to "reclaim every area from the terrorists, and to rebuild" the country.
His remarks came just hours ahead of the start of a ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia.
President Assad spoke to the state news agency SANA on the streets of Daraya, a Damascus suburb that surrendered to government authority last month.
"We call on all Syrians to turn toward reconciliation," he said.
Earlier in Daraya, President Assad joined the prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in a rare public appearance that sent a strong message to his opponents.
SANA says no civilians were present in the suburb, once home to nearly a quarter million people, after the last of them were evacuated as part of the surrender agreement.
In Geneva, the UN envoy for Syria said his office would monitor the start of the ceasefire "carefully, before making any hurried comments".
Staffan de Mistura said that no statement from his office about the truce was expected before the following afternoon.
The ceasefire deal, hammered out between US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Saturday, was backed by Mr Assad's government. But it has received mixed messages of commitment from various rebel factions.
It allows the Syrian government to continue to strike at the Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants with the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group, earlier known as the Nusra Front, until the US and Russia take over the task in one week's time.
Under the terms of the agreement, the rebels and the Syrian government are expected to stop attacking one another. Mr Assad's key allies – Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah – have also endorsed the deal.
But that scenario is complicated by the fact that Jabhat Fatah al-Sham remains intertwined with several other groups fighting on the ground.
One of the more immediate goals of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement is to allow the UN to establish aid corridors into Aleppo, the contested northern Syrian city.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in fighting over the past 40 days in the city, including 700 civilians and 160 children, according to a Syrian human rights group.
On Saturday, presumed Russian or government airstrikes on rebel-held Idlib and Aleppo provinces killed more than 90 civilians, including 13 children in an attack on a marketplace in Idlib, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In the aftermath, rebels and opposition activists were asking on Sunday whether the government's side could be trusted.
Several previous negotiated ceasefires have all eventually collapsed. A partial "cessation of hostilities" that brought sorely needed relief to civilians in March unravelled as the government continued to strike targets in opposition areas, including near a hospital and school close to Damascus and a marketplace in Idlib province, killing dozens of civilians.
Previous ceasefires were also preceded by soaring violence as parties on all sides sought to improve their positions in the build-up.
In Turkey, meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his earlier calls for establishing a no-fly zone in northern Syria, saying it is essential to boosting security in the area.
Mr Erdogan said he told the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and the US that training and equipping troops on the ground to battle back Islamic State group forces is "not enough" and that a no-fly zone should be the next step.
Speaking after holiday prayers yesterday, Mr Erdogan said Turkey remains resolute in eliminating the threat posed by the Islamic State group at its borders and has made that clear to world leaders.
Turkey launched an incursion into northern Syria in late August, driving IS away from the border and also seeking to counter the advance of US-backed Kurdish forces, which Ankara views with suspicion.
