Assad: Syria open to dialog with US

After four years of civil war, president tells CBS that there’s been no contact with Americans

By AFP 27 March 2015, 6:56 am

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Syrian President Bashar Assad gives an interview to Foreign Affairs magazine in Damascus, January 26, 2015. (AFP)

WASHINGTON — Syrian President Bashar Assad is open to dialog with the United States, the leader said in an interview with US television network CBS Thursday.

Assad said such dialog would need to be based on “mutual respect,” but that so far there has been no contact from the Americans.

“But as principal, in Syria we could say that every dialog is a positive thing,” he told television journalist Charlie Rose, in excerpts of an interview to air Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes” program.

When asked about relations between Syria and the United States, Assad said there was no direct communication.

State Department officials recently said Assad will “never” be part of a negotiation to end the Syrian conflict that is now in its fifth year, but that officials from his government could be part of the process.

On March 15, US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to suggest in a CBS television interview that Washington would have to talk with Assad eventually if peace was to be forged.

The suggestion alarmed opposition groups and their backers who hold Assad in particular contempt for the conflict.

But State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki later said that Kerry was referring to representatives of the Assad regime, and not Assad himself.

The United States has long said that it wants a negotiated settlement to end the Syrian war.