A member of the Russian delegation, MP Alexander Yushchenko, told AFP that Assad was “ready to hold elections with the participation of all political forces that want Syria to prosper”.
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Assad is serving his third term as president after he was elected for another seven years last year. The poll was dismissed by the opposition and condemned internationally. Assad won 89 percent of the vote.
Since then, Islamic State militants seized large areas in eastern Syria, including the group’s de facto capital in Raqqa.
Assad visited Moscow last week on his first known trip outside Syria since the start the conflict that is estimated to have killed 250,000 people.
At the same time however, it is clear that a few of our so-called allies – notably the Saudis – are dumping more and more weapons into the war zone in the hopes of keeping the fires burning.
The Russian foreign minister said on state-run television today the country is prepared to work with Western countries to support Syrian rebels struggling to fight invading ISIS forces.
The comments by Jihad al-Laham came during a meeting in Damascus with a visiting Russian parliamentary delegation. While military actions in Syria appeared to have elicited a concession that Mr Assad may be agreeable to elections, Mr Putin’s army, which has no boots on the ground if the Kremlin is to be believed, is now described as the “pivot point of Russian ideology”.
“External players cannot decide anything for the Syrians”.
The calls for cooperation came after at least 44 people, including six children, were killed in 24 hours due to Russian and Syrian air strikes across the country, particularly in Idlib province, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reported on Saturday.
The Syrian jihadi opposition and “moderate” opposition both assure Russian Federation that they should expect to sink in the Syrian quagmire, as Russian Federation experienced in its previous entanglement with Afghanistan.
Moscow says it is targeting the Islamic State group and other “terrorists”.
Western-backed rebels of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have rejected an offer of military support from Russian Federation.
Reports from various Syrian sources indicate that despite massive aerial bombardment by Russian planes on rebel strongholds, rebel forces are fighting stubbornly and still managing to inflict heavy losses in recent days on Hizbullah and Iranian forces.
Opposition groups and Washington have said the Russian air campaign was mainly aimed at reinforcing Assad, who has faced major setbacks from advancing various insurgency groupings. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said in Cairo that global talks had yielded a few progress though more consultations were needed.
US Secretary of State John Kerry later said he hoped to convene a “broader” meeting as soon as October 30.
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The U.S. State Department added that Kerry and Lavrov discussed potential future multilateral meetings and their shared push for ways to “achieve a political transition”.
