Obama says Russia may agree to Assad leaving

US President Barack Obama expresses optimism Tuesday that Russia will ultimately come around on the need for Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave power to end his country’s long civil war, but warns the turnaround would not come overnight.

Discussing the Syria crisis with world leaders in Paris, Obama also urges Turkey and Russia to set aside recent tensions that have undermined his efforts to strengthen the US-led coalition fighting defeating the Islamic State group. Instead, he asks the two countries to focus on IS as a common enemy and on reaching a political solution for Syria.

Obama’s remarks on the sidelines of global climate talks come as the US continues to press Russia to focus its airstrikes in Syria against IS, rather than on US-backed rebel groups fighting Assad. Obama says it was possible over the coming months that Russia would undergo a “shift in calculations” and back away from its support for Assad.

“I don’t expect that you’re going to see a 180-degree turn on their strategy over the next several weeks,” Obama says. “They have invested for years now in keeping Assad in power. Their presence there is predicated on propping him up. That’s going to take some time for them to change how they think about the issue.”

— AP