Washington: Terming reports of opposition gaining ground inside Syria a good news, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said it is still "not too late" for the Assad regime to commence planning transition in Syria.
"We do believe it is not too late for the Assad regime to commence with planning for a transition, to find a way that ends violence by beginning the kind of serious discussions that have not occurred to date," Clinton said yesterday.
"We think it's very important that the opposition fighters, as they get better organised and expand their presence more broadly, send a message that this is for the benefit of all Syrians, not for any group, not to engage in any reprisals and retribution that could lead to even greater violence than currently is taking place," she said.
Clinton said it was important to better coordinate the work that was going on in the region, especially with the increasing refugee flows, and asserted that the US was "intently focused" on that.
She said Washington was working with countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq to make all those helping for an end to the conflict understand that nobody should seek advantage to the detriment of anyone else inside Syria.
"We obviously spent a good amount of time working to find a way that Russia and China could move forward with us in the Security Council. That is on the far backburner right now. So when I say we are doing more, we have moved our efforts into other arenas and with other partners," she said.
Clinton, however, said US would still like to see the Security Council act as it thinks this would be certainly "to the benefit of the people of Syria" and also to "the credit of the Security Council."
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2012, 08:50