Russian Foreign Minister stresses that any solution bid for the Syrian crisis which calls on President Bashar al-Assad to leave power is unworkable.

Russian Foreign Minister stresses that any solution bid for the Syrian crisis which calls on President Bashar al-Assad to leave power is unworkable.

"A scheme according to which President Assad should leave somewhere before something happens in terms of a cessation of violence and a political process, this scheme simply does not work from the very start," Lavrov said Thursday on Echo of Moscow radio.

Lavrov did not explicitly say Russia opposed the idea but said it stood no chance of success.
He said that Russia was not "clinging to President Assad but wants his future to be determined by a general Syrian dialogue."

Lavrov said the results of the legislative polls in May were convincing Assad that he still enjoy broad popular support.
"I do not think Assad will be sitting down at the negotiating table," said Lavrov.
"You have to understand that at least half of the Syrians who for various reasons connect their future and safety with him voted for Assad, no matter how you look at the past elections, his figure, his party, his policies," Lavrov was quoted as saying.

Lavrov also made clear the stance which was announced by President Vladimir Putin during his talks with US President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron in their meeting on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.

"President Putin laid out his logic, according to which we should have Syrians gather at a negotiating table," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov.
British media had earlier said the initiative came after Obama and Cameron “received encouragement” from Putin in talks at the G20 in Mexico.

"When Putin made his point of view known in response to Obama's idea, I was fully under the impression -- and my feeling was in line with that of Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) -- that he (Obama) has heard us," the Russian FM added.