US President Barack Obama said, during a joint-press-conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it would be naive to expect a 180-degree turn by Russia or Syrian President Bashar Assad, but he stressed that Washington and its allies would continue to try to affect change to end the bloody conflict in the war-torn-country.
“We are going to continue to work as we have over the last five, six years to push towards a political transition and settlement. It would be naive of me to suggest that with Russia committed militarily as it is to supporting what, in many cases, are barbarous tactics by the Assad regime to crush the opposition, the sort of indiscriminate bombing that we’ve been seeing, not just in Aleppo, but in many parts of the country over the last several years; it would be naive of me to suggest that there’s going to be a sudden 180-degree turn in policy by either Assad or Russia or Iran at this point. But we are going to continue to make the argument, we are going to continue to try to find humanitarian steps that can reach the people there. We’re going to continue to try to obtain cessations of hostilities that lessen the human tragedy and the migration that’s taking place,” said Obama.
The remarks by the outgoing-American President came prior to a meeting with the leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom, as part of Obama’s so-called ‘farewell European tour’.