Obama: Assad must go, revs up coalition against ISIS

US President Barack Obama said Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad must go if the Islamic State group is to be defeated, as he rallied world leaders to revitalize the coalition campaign against the jihadists.

 

A day after clashing with Russian President Vladimir Putin over how to handle the crisis in Syria, Obama hosted a counterterrorism summit at the United Nations to take stock of the one-year air war against IS fighters in Iraq and Syria.

 

“In Syria… defeating ISIL requires, I believe, a new leader,” Obama told the gathering, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

 

Russia snubbed the meeting of some 100 leaders, sending a low-level diplomat after Putin stole the limelight with his UN speech calling for a broad coalition to fight IS that would include Syria’s army.

 

Assad’s fate is the key bone of contention between Washington and Syria’s Russian and Iranian allies amid intense diplomacy over the way forward to end the four-year war that has killed more than 240,000.

 

At the summit, Obama said the United States was ready to work with Russia and Iran to “find a political mechanism in which it is possible to begin a transition process.”

 

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