Obama says Assad must leave to end Syrian crisis
US President Barack Obama has turned up his anti-Syrian rhetoric by saying President Bashar al-Assad must leave power in order to end the Arab country’s 5-year conflict.
"I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power," Obama said Thursday on the sidelines of a trade summit in Manila, Phillipines.
"Even if I said that was okay, I still don't think it would actually work," Obama said. "You could not get the Syrian people -- the majority of them -- to agree to that kind of outcome."
The US president has previously made similar demands about Assad.
Obama made the comments after meeting with newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Obama also said the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group cannot be eliminated unless there is not a political solution in Syria.
The comments come as Russia has drummed up its support for the Syrian government by striking ISIL positions in the war-ravaged nation.
Russia has strongly opposed Assad's ouster and has warned that calls on Assad to step down will only undermine efforts to end the conflict and take out Daesh.
Western countries have called for the creation of a united front in the war against Daesh following the Paris terror attacks that killed at least 129 people and injuring more than 350 others.
Daesh terrorists, who control parts of Syria and Iraq, have claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks, but independent analysts have questioned the credibility of their assertion.
The crisis in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of over 250,000 people so far and displaced nearly half the country’s population of about 23 million, either internally or our outside its borders.
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