No room for Assad in reworked Syria, Kerry vows
Top US diplomat clarifies earlier statement that Assad’s future should be up to Syrians
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US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that any political solution to the Syrian civil war will exclude current President Bashar Assad, clarifying a statement from earlier in the week that it was up to Syrians to decide whether the strongman must go.
While meeting in Rome with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, Kerry said Jordan was working with the US to “effect a transition government by mutual consent” in Syria. Kerry added that “in our judgment, President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government.”
On Tuesday, the US and Russia announced they would push for talks between the regime and opposition leaders in a bid to end the country’s two-year conflict. Obama has long said Assad must leave office. But Kerry said Tuesday it was up to the Syrian people whether he should leave.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the US position “is that Syria’s future cannot include Bashar al-Assad.”
Kerry also confirmed that the US will earmark $100 million in new humanitarian aid, of which $43 million “will be designated directly to Jordan in order to assist to relieve the burden that they are currently feeling.”
Judeh said that currently, some 10 percent of the population in Jordan is Syrian refugees, and at the rate refugees are pouring into the country, by the end of 2013 they could make up as much as 25% of the population, and even 40% by mid-2014.
“No country can cope with numbers as huge as the numbers I just described,” Judeh said. “We appreciate the help that is coming from the international community, and particularly from the United States of America.”
The new funds will help support 1.4 million Syrian refugees, including many in the US, and hundreds of thousands of other civilians still trapped by the violence inside Syria’s border. Total US humanitarian assistance in the two-year war will climb to $510 million.
Kerry said that US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford has “been engaged in talks with the Syrian opposition, and they’ve been very productive.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.