Turkey criticizes Kerry’s remarks on negotiation with Assad

Turkey criticizes Kerry’s remarks on negotiation with Assad –

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu voiced criticism on Monday of United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks indicating that the US will have to negotiate with Syrian President Bashar Assad for a political transition in Syria.

 In a CBS interview that aired on Sunday, Kerry did not repeat the standard US line that Assad had lost all legitimacy and had to go. Syria’s civil war is now in its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands killed and millions of Syrians displaced.

 “We have to negotiate in the end,” Kerry said when asked whether the United States would be willing to negotiate with Assad. “We’ve always been willing to negotiate in the context of the Geneva I process,” he added, referring to a 2012 conference that called for a negotiated transition to end the conflict.

 Kerry said the US and other countries, which he did not name, were exploring ways to reignite the diplomatic process to end the conflict in Syria.