U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to change his message on the country’s policy toward Syria and ending the civil war after a meeting Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Kerry seemed to accept Russia’s long-standing demand that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s future be determined by his own people, saying the U.S. would not require him to step down.
“The United States and our partners are not seeking so-called regime change,” Mr. Kerry told reporters in Moscow, The Associated Press reported.
His statement seemed to contradict years of U.S. policy statements on the bloody civil war in the region.
Since 2011, U.S. officials — including President Obama — have continually said that, in order to bring the war to an end, Mr. Assad could not remain in power.
The U.S. has hoped that Mr. Assad could be peacefully “eased out” of power as part of a political transition brokered with Russia.
On Tuesday, Mr. Kerry reiterated the U.S. position that Mr. Assad, accused by the West of massive human rights violations and chemical weapons attacks, won’t be able to steer Syria out of more than four years of conflict.
But after a day of discussions with Russia — Mr. Assad’s key ally — Mr. Kerry said the focus now is “not on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad.” Rather, it is on facilitating a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria,” AP reported.
He said Syrians should not be forced to “choose between a dictator and being plagued by terrorists,” but said the Syrian opposition’s demand that Mr. Assad must leave on day one of any political transition is a “nonstarting position, obviously,” AP reported.
Although the U.S. has pushed for Mr. Assad to be removed from office, officials have done little to actually affect regime change. A costly U.S.-led train-and-equip program aimed at helping anti-regime forces in Syria was shut down in October after it failed to produce more than a handful of fighters.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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