US says it hasn’t changed position on Assad

The Obama administration maintained Friday that President Bashar Assad shouldn’t lead Syria any longer, rejecting a Russian claim that the US has changed its position.

Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov saying Washington now accepts Moscow’s argument that Assad’s future shouldn’t be open for negotiation right now.

Assad’s Russian-backed government and Western-supported rebels recently concluded a round of peace talks and will meet again next month. Secretary of State John Kerry visited President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials in the Kremlin this week to plot the next steps.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said: “Any suggestion that we have changed in any way our view of Assad’s future is false. Assad has lost his legitimacy to govern. We haven’t changed our view on that.”...
 [The Associated Press - alarabiya.net]
26/3/16