France ‘could work with Assad's forces’ against IS group

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius suggested Friday that troops loyal to Bashar al-Assad could be used to fight the Islamic State group, but only in the framework of a political transition without the Syrian President.

“Troops on the ground cannot be ours, but [there could be] Syrian soldiers from the Free Syrian Army, Sunni Arab states, and why not regime troops,” Fabius told RTL radio without specifying whether he meant immediately or in the long-term.

Fabius’s comments were immediately welcomed by his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem.

"Better late than never. If Fabius is serious about working with the Syrian army and dealing with the forces on the ground that are fighting Daesh, then we welcome that," Muallem told a press conference following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, using the Arabic name for the IS group.

However, an official in the French Foreign minister’s team insisted that the minister was reiterating France’s long-standing position that there could be no cooperation with Syrian government forces to battle the IS group until a unity government was in place.

“It could only happen in the framework of a political transition and Fabius stresses that this transition is urgent and indispensable,” the official said........france24.com [with Reuters]
27/11/18
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