NEWSLINK: Russia Won’t Tell Assad to Go, Sees Flexibility Among His Foes

[Russia won’t tell Assad to go, sees flexibility among his foes – Reuters – Steve Gutterman – March 8, 2013 – http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/08/us-syria-crisis-russia-idUSBRE9270GB20130308]

Reuters covers Russian policy towards the bloodshed and potential regime change in Syria, including recent public comments by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disavowing a call for Syrian strong-man Basha Al-Assad to step down peacefully:

Russia will ‘absolutely not’ tell Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down to end the civil war and make way for a political transition, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in comments published on Friday.

The remarks to the BBC were a reiteration of Moscow’s position that Assad’s exit must not be a precondition for a negotiated solution to the two-year-old conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people.

Asked whether there was a chance that Russia would tell Assad he should step down for the sake of a peace agreement, Lavrov replied: ‘Absolutely not. You know that we’re not in the regime-change game.’

Lavrov also reiterated Russian opposition to the concept of external intervention in domestic politics generally.

He did address the notion of negotiations between Syrian rebels and the Assad regime, albeit while also alleging that rebels might not push for Assad to step down either.

Russia has stood in the way of UN-based action against Assad.  And there reportedly has been little progress in efforts towards a more unified U.S.-Russian stance on Syria:

Russia has blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions meant to push Assad out or press him to end violence, a position that has set it against Western and Arab nations …

… The Kremlin and the U.S. government have spoken recently of the need to step up efforts to end the war and start a political transition but several meetings – including one in London on Thursday between senior Russian and U.S. diplomats – have brought few signs of progress.

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