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2nd LD: No agreement reached on future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Xinhua, October 31, 2015 Adjust font size:

There is still no agreement reached over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yet, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told reporters after the meetings in Vienna.

Lavrov said that stake holders initiated a political process to find a solution for ending the crisis in Syria, but there is still difference over the future of al-Assad.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, echoing Lavrov, acknowledged the fate of al-Assad was still a main point of contention amongst the nations participating in the Vienna talks.

In response to this issue, Russia said the people in Syria should decide the future for themselves, and that Russia wants to stop the crisis in Syria, saying Russia would continue fighting against terrorists in Syria.

Russia has lunched air strike against the Islamic extremist in Syria for weeks.

Washington has announced the U.S. is to deploy small amounts of special forces to northern Syria to advise opposition forces in the fight against Islamic State when sides were meeting in Vienna on Friday.

Kerry emphasized that the announcement of the operation at the same time with the ongoing meetings in Austria is just a coincidence.

Lavrov said the U.S. decision to deploy the special force in the country would make the cooperation between the armed forces of both states more important.

"I am sure that neither the United States nor Russia want to become a so-called proxy war," he noted.

Some stake holders, especially the U.S. and certain gulf nations, believed that, as part of the solution for Syria, al-Assad must leave his president office. Endit