As Syria's civil war enters fifth year, Kerry says Assad talks necessary

The bloody civil conflict in Syria entered its fifth year Sunday, amid continued bombing of the country’s civilians and an admission by Secretary of State John Kerry that the U.S. will have to negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad if an end of fighting is to be achieved.

Washington has long insisted that Assad must be replaced as part of a political transition in the country.  But in the face of no end to the violence and the rise of a common enemy in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Kerry’s comments appear to indicate a softened stance towards the Syrian leader.

In the interview broadcast on Sunday, Kerry did not repeat the standard U.S. line that Assad had lost all legitimacy and had to go.

"We have to negotiate in the end," Kerry said. "We've always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva process," he added, referring to a 2012 conference that called for a negotiated transition to end the conflict.

Kerry's comments came on the fourth anniversary of a war that has killed more than 220,000 people and has left more than half of Syria’s population displaced. On Sunday, media activists in the town of Douma in northern Damascus reported that more than 20 people, including children, were killed after government warplanes launched airstrikes on residential areas and schools.

The incident was indicative of the high civilian cost of a conflict that has seen the country carved up by government forces, armed groups, Kurdish fighters and other rebel groups.

Meanwhile, diplomacy to resolve the civil war remains stalled, with two rounds of peace talks achieving no progress and even a proposal for a local ceasefire in Aleppo fizzling out.

On Sunday Kerry said the United States and other countries were exploring ways to reignite the diplomatic process.

"What we're pushing for is to get him (Assad) to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds in order to do that," the secretary of state said.

"We've made it very clear to people that we are looking at increased steps that can help bring about that pressure," he added.

The conflict began as an anti-government uprising, with protesters taking to the streets on March 15, 2011, inspired by similar revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.

But a government crackdown on the demonstrations prompted a militarization of the uprising and its descent into today's multi-front conflict.

"Nobody really expected that we would reach this stage in which we will actually be having this national disaster in Syria," Marwan Kabalan, a Syrian academic and analyst at Doha Institute, told Al Jazeera as the conflict entered its fifth year on Sunday. 

"The heavy-handed approach that was used by the regime against the peaceful protesters was the main reason that this fairly peaceful revolution has turned into the sort of conflict that we are witnessing right now."

The consequences have been devastating.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR says Syria is now "the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era".

More than seven million people have been displaced, and the UN says around 60 percent of the population now lives in poverty.

The country's infrastructure has severely disrupted, its currency is in free fall and economists say the economy has been set back by some 30 years.

Meanwhile, rights groups have documented horrific violations, with the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting this week that 13,000 people had been tortured to death in government detention since the uprising began.

Tens of thousands more remain in regime jails and detention facilities, with many effectively disappearing after their arrest.

Despite international outrage at the death toll, and allegations that his regime used chemical weapons against its own people in August 2013, Assad has clung to power.

In his comments Sunday, Kerry stressed that negotiations were necessary "because everybody agrees there is no military solution; there's only a political solution.

He added: “To get the Assad regime to negotiate, we're going to have to make it clear to him that there is a determination by everybody to seek that political outcome and change his calculation about negotiating. That's underway right now."

Al Jazeera and wire services