Syrian people should decide Assad’s fate, Tillerson tells US media

‘US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said the Syrian crisis can only be solved through a political process, claiming it’s not regime change but the defeat of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group that Washington is seeking in Syria.
“Our strategy in Syria, our priority is first to defeat ISIS,” the US official said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” host, George Stephanopoulos, which was aired Sunday.
Saying that once the battle with the terrorist group is concluded, which according to the US official is “going quite well,” Washington plans to turn its attention “to achieving ceasefire agreements between the regime and opposition forces.”
Bringing the parties to the table for political discussions “clearly requires the participation of the regime and the support of their allies,” Tillerson said in another Sunday interview to the American media, speaking to John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”‘

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