UK FM: 'Syria's Assad will be around for a while'

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt in London, UK on 6 June 2014 [NHS Confederation/Flickr]

Attacks against 4 hospitals in Idlib, have left more than 40,000 people without healthcare in a conflict zone – Cartoon [Sarwar Ahmed/MiddleEastMonitor]

British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said on Thursday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will remain in place for “a while” thanks to support from Russia, even though Britain’s position was still that he remains a block to lasting peace, reports Reuters.

Hunt told Sky News:

The British long-standing position is that we won’t have lasting peace in Syria with that (Assad-led) regime, but regretfully, we do think he’s going to be around for a while.

Nearly eight years into a war that has displaced millions of Syrians, Assad has recovered control of most of the country with support from Russia, Iran, and Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

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Last week, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, marking a diplomatic boost for Assad from a US-allied Arab state that once backed rebels fighting him.

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