WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States is not planning to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad militarily because force alone will not solve the crisis in Syria, a State Department official told reporters.
“President [Barack Obama] has been very clear that there’s not going to be a military solution to the problems inside Syria… there is no discussion right now of a military solution to this,” the State Department official said on Monday when asked if the US government was considering military options for removing Assad.
On Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he will be meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Qatari capital of Doha in August to discuss the situation in Syria.
Earlier in July 2015, Obama stated that the problems in Syria will not be solved without Russia, Iran, Turkey and US partners playing a role.
Syria has been engulfed in civil war since 2011. The Syrian government has been engaged in fighting the so-called moderate opposition as well as a number of extremist insurgent groups, including the Islamic State.
More than 220,000 people have been killed in the fighting and 11 million have been displaced, according to the UN.
