Saudi FM: Assad has no place in Syria’s future

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday Riyadh's position on the conflict in Syria has not changed and that there was no place for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the future of the country.

He was speaking after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, a long-standing ally of Assad in the conflict, amid a renewed diplomatic push to end the conflict in Syria because of gains on the ground by ISIS.

Al Jubeir reiterated that Assad "must go and Syrian army must be maintained and it must be used in the the war against ISIS after the departure of Assad." However, his Russian counterpart said that Coalition’s strikes on ISIS did not fulfill its targets and that "toppling Assad will pave the way to ISIS to seize the power and control the whole country.

Lavrov said that while Russia was still disagreeing with Saudi Arabia on Assad's future, but "there is no disagreement with Saudi over Geneva I."

He said "early details" of how to coordinate international efforts to fight ISIS have started to emerge, adding that Moscow and Riyadh agreed that international players should join ranks to counter the militants who control swathes of Syria and Iraq.

(With Reuters)