Is The West About To Make A Deal With Syrian President Assad?

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with a Russian newspaper in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on August 26, 2013. Credit: Reuters/SANA/Handout via Reuters

British Intelligence Said To Be In Talks With Assad -- Times of Israel/AFP

Despite assertion by US and UK denying coordination with Syrian regime, discussions have been going on for months, report says

The British MI6 spy agency was reportedly engaged in months-long talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in the lead-up to the Western military campaign against the Islamic State group.

Officers from the agency have been conducting discussions in Damascus with members of Assad’s intelligence network as well as senior Syrian diplomats, despite a recent assertion by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond that a pact with the dictator would not be “practical, sensible or helpful,” the Mirror newspaper reported.

The United States has also denied any coordination with the Syrian government or its close ally Iran regarding the air campaign against the Islamic State, which has carved out a large swath of territory in Syria and Iraq and declared an Islamic caliphate there, killing thousands of people in the process.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am not surprised that there are talks .... I just like to know what are the details of these talks. Is this just a means to tell Assad to back-off as U.S. and coalition planes bomb the Islamic State, or is this leading to something more deeper .... like a deal to keep Assad in power.