WASHINGTON // As the devastating war in Syria entered its fifth year on Sunday, the US said it would have to negotiate with Syrian president Bashar Al Assad to “reignite” new peace talks.
It came as three teenage boys from Britain who were believed to be on their way to Syria to join extremists, were detained in Turkey and quickly returned to the UK where they were arrested.
After years of insisting Mr Assad’s days were numbered, US secretary of state John Kerry conceded that Washington would have to negotiate with the iron-fisted leader to end the war.
“Well, we have to negotiate in the end. We’ve always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva I process,” Mr Kerry said in an interview with CBS television aired on Sunday.
Diplomacy has been stalled, with two rounds of peace talks achieving no progress and even a proposal for a local ceasefire in the second city Aleppo fizzling out.
Deputy state department spokeswoman Marie Harf, however, denied there was any shift in US policy.
“@JohnKerry repeated long-standing policy that we need negotiated process w/regime at table - did not say we wld negotiate directly w/Assad,” she said in a message on her Twitter account.
Mr Kerry acknowledged that it would need increased pressure on Mr Assad “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. And I am convinced that, with the efforts of our allies and others, there will be increased pressure on Assad,” he said.
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 fierce government crackdown on the demonstrations prompted a militarisation of the uprising and its descent into the brutal multi-front conflict that it is today.
Four years on, the country’s infrastructure has been decimated, and economists say the economy has been set back by some 30 years.
Despite international outrage, and allegations that his regime used chemical weapons against its own people in August 2013, Mr Assad has clung to power.
His forces have consolidated their grip on the capital Damascus, where 18 more people were killed in more regime aire raids on Sunday and more than 100 injured according to the monitor group.
And Mr Assad’s forces are now moving to encircle rebels in Aleppo to the north.
The assaults have been aided by the government’s increasing reliance on crude barrel bombs, which Mr Assad denies using despite extensive documentation.
His government has been emboldened by both its military successes and an apparent shift in international rhetoric.
Calls for his resignation have been notably more muted as international attention shifts to the threat posed by the extremists ISIL group.
Diplomats describe a new willingness to countenance a role for Mr Assad in Syria’s future, although Washington still insists that he has lost all legitimacy and must step down.
“Assad didn’t want to negotiate,” Mr Kerry told CBS television, about the last failed rounds of peace talks in Geneva.
“What we’re pushing for is to get him to come and do that,” he replied when asked if he would negotiate with Mr Assad.
Russia, a key Assad ally, is floating its own dialogue process, and will host talks in Moscow in April, but it remains unclear if the internationally recognised opposition will attend.
Mr Kerry met with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva in early March and discussed whether a new path to peace could be found.
“We are working very hard with other interested parties to see if we can reignite a diplomatic outcome,” Mr Kerry told CBS News.
His comments were flashed on Syrian state television.
But international attention has largely shifted away from the war to fighting the ISIL group which has captured a large swath of territory in Iraq and Syria, terrorising the population and carrying out horrific beheadings and murders.
Mr Kerry has said Washington’s top priority is defeating ISIL.
On Sunday, UK police arrested three teens believed to be planning to join extremists in Syria.
The trio left Britain several days ago, and were detained in Istanbul after British officials notified Turkish authorities. The three were arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorism acts and were in custody at a central London police station, police said. Their names have not been released. Two are aged 17 and one is 19.
They are believed to be the latest in a growing number of Britons trying to travel to extremist-held territory inside Syria.
Last month, three British schoolgirls left the U.K. for Turkey and, police believe, crossed the border into Syria to join ISIL.
* Agence France-Presse, with additional reporting from Associated Press
