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              Kerry: US Will Have to Negotiate with Syria's Assad

   by VOA News

   Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States will ultimately
   have to negotiate with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is
   considering ways to pressure the leader into talks about a political
   transition.

   Assad is under fierce domestic and international scrutiny. Four years
   of civil war between government forces and rebel opposition groups,
   paired with the Islamic State militant onslaught in the north and east,
   have killed thousands of Syrians, displaced millions more, and
   devastated the country's infrastructure.

   "We have to negotiate in the end," Kerry said in an interview broadcast
   on Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation, encouraging a diplomatic end to the
   conflict in Syria.

   "To get the Assad regime to negotiate, we're going to have to make it
   clear to him that there is a determination by everybody to seek that
   political outcome. ... and I am convinced that, with the efforts of our
   allies and others, there will be increased pressure on Assad," he
   added.

   Kerry, who provided no additional details, spoke with CBS before
   leaving Egypt for Lausanne, where he was to resume negotiations with
   Iran on that country's nuclear program.

   Some material for this report came from AP.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/kerry-us-will-have-to-negotiation-with-syria-president-bashar-al-assad/2680788.html