Merkel aide rules out working with Assad despite rise of Islamic...

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is to blame for the civil war engulfing his country and the West should not talk to him just because Islamic State (IS) is "even worse", German Chancellor Angela Merkel's foreign policy adviser said on Tuesday.

IS militants have seized swathes of territory in both Syria and Iraq and a U.S-led coalition is targeting them in air strikes, providing some respite for Assad's forces and prompting some to suggest a possible rapprochement with the president.

"(Despite) the fact that maybe now there is an organization - ISIS - that with regard to humanitarian and human rights violations is even worse than Assad, we shouldn't consider Assad now somebody who can be an interlocutor and somebody whom we should work with," said Christoph Heusgen, Merkel's chief adviser on foreign and security policy.

"We must not forget it is Assad who is to blame for hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed, millions of people who have been misplaced," Heusgen told a conference in Berlin, adding there was a need for a political solution in Syria involving major regional powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.

"I see the Russian ambassador here (at the conference) and Russia has excellent relations to Assad, providing him with weapons, and I think there is somebody who could talk to him and tell him to come to his senses," Heusgen said.

In turn, the United Nations peace envoy to Syria said on Tuesday that Syrian officials had given him positive signals over a U.N. proposal for a local truce in the northern city of Aleppo, a main battleground in Syria's three-year-old war.

Speaking in a televised news conference in Damascus after meeting President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian foreign minister, envoy Staffan de Mistura said the government's initial response to the proposal "was of interest and constructive interest".

De Mistura is pushing an initiative to create truces and improve aid access in defined local areas, starting in Aleppo, once Syria's main commercial hub.

The state news agency said de Mistura and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem agreed to continue consultations on returning stability to Aleppo and easing the passage of humanitarian aid.

In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), de Mistura said a common threat posed by the Islamic State militant group may help push government and rebel forces toward local truces, adding that the Islamic State was "destabilizing everybody".

Asked what incentive rebel and government fighters may have to accept local truces, de Mistura said: "There is one major new factor. What is that called? Daesh. ISIS. Terrorism."

Islamic State is also known as ISIS and the Arabic acronym 'Daesh,' which its members consider derogatory.

"Second...no one is actually winning (Syria's war)," de Mistura added. "You think that one side may be winning? The truth is no one is. And that's why we have an idea about how to push at least one major example, Aleppo."

De Mistura acknowledged that, even if the U.N. plan went forward, it would only be an initial step in a conflict which has killed some 200,000 people and displaced millions.

"Saying having a peace plan would be ambitious and delusionary. But I do have, we do have, an action plan. And the action plan starts from the ground: stop the fighting, reduce the violence," he said in the BBC interview.

Also on Tuesday, President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces Hadi al-Bahra accused the US-led coalition of having a "confused" strategy in Iraq and Syria that targeted jihadists but turned "a blind eye" to crimes by Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"The coalition is fighting the symptom of the problem, which is Islamic State, without addressing the main cause, which is the regime," al-Bahra said.

"People see coalition planes hitting IS targets but turning a blind eye to Assad's air force, which is using barrel bombs and rockets against civilian targets in Aleppo and elsewhere," Bahra said during a visit to London where he met with representatives of the 11 countries that support his coalition in its fight against Assad's regime.

Bahra also accused the coalition of "completely" ignoring fighters of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

REUTERS

Merkel aide rules out working with Assad despite rise of Islamic State