US President Barack Obama said yesterday that there could not be peace in Syria without the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.
“I think that Assad is going to have to leave in order for the country to stop the bloodletting and for all the parties involved to be able to move forward in a non-sectarian way. He has lost legitimacy in the eyes of a large majority of the country,” President Obama said at a press conference at the White House on Friday.
Echoing President Obama’s remarks, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his British counterpart Philip Hammond said on Friday that Assad had to step down.
“How could somebody bring together a whole people when he has massacred so many?” Fabius asked as AFP reported.
As long as Assad remains in power, Fabius said, reconciliation between Syrians and the state will remain “unattainable.”
Fabius demanded that talks on Syria’s future yield assurances that Bashar al-Assad will leave power. “There must be safeguards regarding the exit of Bashar al-Assad,” Fabius told the UN Security Council after the adoption of a resolution endorsing a peace process yesterday, Friday, December 18. (Source: Agencies)
