PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad told a US TV audience on Thursday evening that he would be open to a dialogue with Washington, provided that it was “based on mutual respect.”

The Syrian leader said that, in principle, “every dialogue is a positive thing and we are going to be open to any dialogue with anyone, including the United States.”

However, he made clear that there has been no direct communication so far with Washington.

President Assad’s comments follow US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement earlier this month that the US must eventually talk to the Syrian government to help broker an end to the country’s civil war.

The Obama administration then negated this stance by saying that the president could have no future role in Syria.

“I would say what we have in Syria so far is only a statement, nothing concrete yet, no facts, no new reality regarding the political approach of the United States toward our situation, our problem, our conflict in Syria,” Mr Assad told interviewer Charlie Rose of CBS News.

In a separate interview with a group of Russian journalists, the Syrian leader lauded a Russian initiative to nurture talks between Syrian government representatives and the opposition in Moscow.

A first round of talks in Moscow in January made no headway after being boycotted by the main Western-backed opposition Syrian National Coalition.

“In order for this dialogue to succeed, it should be purely Syrian. In other words, there shouldn’t be any outside influence on the participants in this dialogue,” said President Assad.

by Our Foreign Desk