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Bashar al-Assad has replied to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's controversial remarks that Syria should be included in negotiations to reach a political transition, saying that his government will "wait for actions and then decide" whether to engage.
The embattled Syrian president was responding to comments Kerry made Sunday during an interview with CBS. He declined to repeat the standard U.S. line that Assad had lost all legitimacy over the conflict in Syria and therefore had to go. Instead, Kerry said, "We have to negotiate in the end."
Kerry said the U.S. and other countries, which he did not name, were exploring ways to revive the diplomatic process to end the conflict in Syria, which has left more than 200,000 people dead and displaced about half the population.
"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," Kerry said.
In an interview with Syrian state media on Monday, Assad said that any change in international attitudes regarding Syria's situation would be positive.
Assad also reiterated that foreign countries should stop supporting "terrorist groups" in Syria, a term his government uses for the armed rebel factions that have been battling the army and allied fighters for four years.
"Any talk on the future of the Syrian president is for the Syrian people, and all the declarations from outside do not concern us," Assad said.
The U.S. has long insisted that Assad must be replaced through a negotiated political transition. The rise of a common enemy, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), appears to have softened the West's stance toward him.
Marie Harf, State Department spokeswoman, said later on Sunday that Kerry was not specifically referring to Assad, with whom the U.S. would never negotiate.
But Washington's allies appeared to be caught off-guard by Kerry's comments. France, a major U.S. ally, said its position was unchanged and that Assad could not be part of a negotiated solution in Syria.
Asked by French television channel Canal+ whether he regretted Kerry's comments, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Monday: "Yes, of course." Assad, he noted, was "responsible for tens of thousands of deaths."
"There will not be a political solution, there will not be a solution for Syria as long as Bashar al-Assad stays, and John Kerry knows it," Valls said.
When asked about Kerry's remarks on Monday, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, called Assad's government "the reason for all the problems" in Syria.
"What is there to negotiate with Assad?" he said. "What will you negotiate with a regime which has killed more than 200,000 people and used chemical weapons? What result is achieved through negotiations so far today?"
Al Jazeera and wire services
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