Britain and US may offer Assad clemency in bid to break Syrian stalemate

The US and Britain are prepared to offer clemency to Syrian President Bashar Assad after Russian leader Vladimir Putin expressed his approval of the idea, the Guardian reported on Thursday.

The move is part of a broader drive toward a UN-backed conference in Geneva aimed at changing Syria’s system of government.

According to the report, the US and Britain would offer safe passage and even clemency in order to extract Assad from Syria and pave the way to transitional talks.

“It is hard to see a negotiated solution in which one of the participants would be willing voluntarily to go off to the international criminal court,” the Guardian quoted a senior UK official as saying.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama both held bilateral talks with Putin during the G-20 talks currently under way in Mexico. The leaders discussed ways of ousting Assad to make room for constitutional changes in Syria, where mounting death tolls and an increasingly divided rebel movement are tearing the country apart.

The developments came after US officials became convinced that Putin is open to removing Assad from power under the right conditions.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will now try and convince former UN  Secretary General Kofi Annan to host the proposed conference that will promote a transition plan similar to that recently used to change the government in Yemen. In February, the former president of Yemen, Ali Saleh, was granted immunity from prosecution over his role in the killings of civilians in return for resigning and allowing his deputy to step in and form a new constitution.

The hope is to convene the Geneva conference before the end of the month with the aim of holding elections in Syria within 18 months, the report said. The conference would include representatives of the Syrian government and leading figures from its opposition, the five permanent members of the UN security council, and representatives from other countries in the region such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month Russia reportedly offered Assad safe haven, according to a report in The Washington Post. The report added that there were rumors of billions of dollars having been transferred to a Moscow bank account.