Moscow Ready to Arrange US-Syria Meeting if Damascus Asks: Senior Diplomat

MOSCOW, December 10 (Sputnik) – Russia is ready to arrange a US-Syrian meeting in Moscow if Damascus asks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Wednesday.

“If Syrians want to meet in Moscow, then we will discuss this issue with the US side and others,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Washington should coordinate the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria through direct contacts with the Bashar Assad government, but Washington “stubbornly insists” that it cannot recognize the legitimacy of the regime.

The United States has long argued that Bashar Assad's government uses violence against its people, and in May 2011 US President Barack Obama signed an executive order putting into effect sanctions against Assad, hoping also that the Syrian leader would leave his post. However, at the presidential election in Syria held in June 2014, Bashar Assad won a landslide victory, gathering 88.7 percent of the vote.

The United States still refuses to cooperate with the Syrian government, and Washington has repeatedly said that it would not coordinate with Damascus its attacks on Syrian territory targeting the Islamic State — a Sunni terrorist group that has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. The US-led coalition is currently engaged in an operation in Syria and Iraq to halt the advance of the terrorist organization.

In October, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the United States was no longer insisting on the resignation of Assad and but was trying to establish separate contacts with Damascus.