Bashar al-Assad has replied to John Kerry’s remarks that Syria should be included in negotiations to reach a political transition, saying his government will decide on the issue after seeing “actions”.
The Syrian president was responding to comments by the US secretary of state during an Sunday interview to American television channel CBS.
Kerry did not repeat the standard US line that Assad had lost all legitimacy over the conflict in Syria and so had to go.
“We have to negotiate in the end,” Kerry said when asked whether the US would be willing to negotiate with Assad.
President Assad said in comments broadcast on Syrian state television: “We are still hearing the declarations and we should wait for actions and then decide.”
Kerry said the US and other countries, which he did not name, were exploring ways to revive the diplomatic process to end the conflict in Syria, which has left more than 200,000 people dead and displaced about half the population.
“What we’re pushing for is to get him [Assad] to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds in order to do that,” he said.
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