US: ‘Our view on Assad has not changed’

American State Department yesterday denied reports that it would include Bashar Al-Assad in any future solution for the Syrian crisis, spokesman Jeff Rathke said.

Speaking during his daily press briefing in Washington, Rathke said: “Our position has long been and it remains that Assad has no role in Syria’s political future. We have been extremely clear about that publicly as well as privately.”

His remark came in an answer to a question about claimed that Secretary of State John Kerry has offered Syrian Opposition Coalition President Khaled Khoja a proposal stating that if the opposition wants a political solution for the crisis in Syria, they have to accept Al-Assad in the transitional phase.

Rathke said that the UN Special Envoy to Syria Stephan de Mistura is leading discussions now in Geneva and the US special envoy to the Syrian issue Daniel Rubinstein had conducted some discussions in Geneva and in Moscow.

About the Russian role, he said: “We need to see the process in Geneva that De Mistura is leading move forward. He is having consultations, and we have been talking with the Russians about putting the right pressure on all parties to engage.”