Kerry: I’d be willing to talk to Syria’s Assad

Associated Press

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would be willing to talk with Syrian President Bashar Assad to help broker a political resolution to the country’s civil war.

Kerry said in an interview with CBS News that the U.S. is pushing for Assad to seriously discuss a transition strategy to help end Syria’s four-year conflict, which has killed more than 220,000 people, given rise to the Islamic State group and destabilized the wider Middle East.

“We have to negotiate in the end,” Kerry said. “What we’re pushing for is to get him to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds.”

The Obama administration has long pushed for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis, and helped bring the Assad government and the Western-backed opposition to the negotiating table in early 2014.

Those talks collapsed without making any headway, however, and there has been no serious effort as of yet to revive them.

“We’ve made it very clear to people that we are looking at increased steps that can help bring about that pressure,” Kerry said, without elaborating on what those steps might be.

Syria’s state news agency reported Kerry’s comments in full.

It also said Damascus has called for a political solution before, and accused the U.S. of undermining such efforts, militarizing the conflict and supporting terrorists.