US Supports A Transitional Gov’t in Syria without Al-Assad

Local Editor

Hours from his visit to Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry retreated from supporting dialogue in Syria based on the Geneva statement.

According to Kerry, "the United States believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will have to step down as part of any political solution in Syria."
Kerry made the comments to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Rome.

He said the United States still believes al-Assad cannot be part of a transitional government in Syria.
"All sides were working to effect a transition government by mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgment President al-Assad will not be a component of that transitional government," the US top official claimed.

From Rome, Kerry also officially unveiled $100m in additional US humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, almost half of which will go to help Jordan struggling to cope with a tide of people fleeing the war.
For his part, Judeh revealed that "2,000 people are flooding across the border into Jordan every day, and the country now hosts nearly 525,000 refugees."

"We have 10 percent of our population today, in the form of Syrian refugees. It is expected to rise to about 20 to 25 percent given the current rates by the end of this year, and possibly to about 40 percent by the middle of 2014," he said.
"No country can cope with the numbers as huge as the numbers I've just described," he said, adding Jordan was very grateful for the help of the international community.

Later, Kerry hosted talks with special Middle East envoy Tony Blair as he seeks to find a way to resume the so-called "Israeli"-Palestinian peace process.
In this context, agencies revealed that the two men met privately for more than two hours in the US ambassador's residence in Rome.


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org