Assad says hopes Russia can change Turkey's policy towards Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday that his country's only hope was that a rapprochement between Russia and Turkey would allow Moscow to change Ankara's policy towards Syria.

 
Assad made the comments in an interview with Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, a fragment of which was published on the paper's site on Thursday. The full interview is due to be published on Friday.