Assad met with a group of Russian lawmakers and other officials in Damascus, and the state-run SANA news agency said the president stressed that taking out terrorist groups would preserve Syria’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity.
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Sergei Gavrilov, another Communist lawmaker, told Tass in that Assad was ready to hold parliamentary elections in that included “reasonable, patriotic opposition forces”.
Assad’s comments come as top diplomats from Russian Federation, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey are discussing new ideas to revive a failed political transition in Syria to end the war – now in its fifth year.
An alliance of Free Syrian Army-related groups in southern Syria said on Monday Russian Federation must stop bombing rebels before they could talk about cooperating with it, saying they hadn’t turned down an offer of support but Moscow must first halt its attacks.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a visiting Russian lawmaker that he is ready to participate in any early pole “when necessary”, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV said on Sunday.
The election was dismissed by the opposition and condemned internationally.
An alliance of insurgents targeted by Russian air strikes said on Tuesday it was starting an operation to recapture Hama.
The announcement is expected to anger Western-backed moderate rebels, as well as Washington and its allies, who say there is no future for Mr Assad in post-conflict Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said 43 regime forces and 28 IS fighters had been killed in Aleppo in the last 48 hours, fighting for control of a key government supply route cut by the jihadists on Friday.
A few of the rebels have received military support from states opposed to Assad, including the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Robert Lee, a scholar at CAST, a defense industry think tank based in Moscow, said that the presence of Russian boots in the Syrian war theatre could greatly contribute to the accuracy of Russian airstrikes.
“We are committed to implementing the principles of Geneva to establish a transitional authority that installs a constitution and directs the government and military ahead of elections”, he said.
Moscow said Lavrov discussed Syria with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry twice at the weekend, and spoke to his Iranian and Egyptian counterparts on Saturday.
Assad’s opponents, however, are wary of Russia’s motives, suspecting it of trying to prop up Assad and look after its own national interests in the Middle East as its warplanes support offensives against rebels on the ground.
Al-Jubeir said the Saudis and the Americans agree that a desirable solution to the Syrian conflict is through the Geneva-1 agreement.
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“What we care about is Assad leaving, not turning this from a war against the regime to a war against terrorism”, Saoud, a former Syrian army officer who defected and now leads the rebel 13th Division group, told the AP.
