MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax) - A demand for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign as a precondition of the Syrian dialogue is counterproductive, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Saturday press conference.
"We deem wrong claims of the opposition that it can start the dialogue on the future of the country only after the resignation of al-Assad; this is a counterproductive standpoint, because the price of this standpoint, the price of this precondition of the dialogue is an increased number of lives lost by Syrian citizens," he said.