Re-election bid up to Assad, Russia says

MOSCOW — Syrian President Bashar Assad should be allowed to run for re-election, Russia’s top envoy for Syria said, dismissing Western efforts to condition reconstruction aid on the departure of a leader blamed by some for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his citizens.

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t or wouldn’t run for another presidential term,” Alexander Lavrentiev, appointed by the Kremlin to steer the Syria peace process, said in an interview Monday in Ankara, Turkey.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared victory in his two-year military intervention in Syria, ordering troops to begin withdrawal. The operation succeeded in shoring up Assad against rebels supported by the U.S. and regional powers.

The U.S. and its European and Arab partners have for years insisted that Assad must go and are now using as leverage funding for rebuilding the shattered nation in a final attempt to pressure the Syrian leader. The International Monetary Fund estimates the cost of reconstruction at $200 billion.

“It’s a simplistic approach when some Western countries say that they’ll give money only when they see that the opposition comes to power or their interests are fully accommodated,” said Lavrentiev, who was in the Turkish capital accompanying Putin on a three-nation Middle East tour.

“It’s not all about the U.S., France or Great Britain. There are Russia, Iran, China, India and many other countries,” he said.

Russia plans to hold a conference of the Syrian government and opposition groups early next year to agree on the framework for a political settlement.

Russia’s initiative looks like a arrangement to leave Assad in power and get someone else to foot the bill for reconstruction, according to White House officials. The U.S. and its European allies are in agreement there shouldn’t be any international funding for rebuilding in the areas under Assad’s control, they said.