World Bulletin/News Desk

The German government has ruled out initiating talks with the Assad regime in Syria, an adviser to the Chancellor said on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen said the president of the Syrian regime Bashar al-Assad was guilty of genocide. 

“We should not consider Assad as somebody who is an interlocutor, as somebody we should work with only because now there is an organization like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant with human rights violations, even worse than those of Assad,” Heusgen said at the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum.

“We must not forget that it is Assad who should be blamed for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, and the displacement of millions of people outside the country,” Heusgen said.

Merkel’s adviser admitted that the international community in general, and Western countries in particular, have made several mistakes in the past, and several chances for a political solution in the Syria conflict were missed.

Heusgen recalled how Saudi Arabia in 2011 allowed ousted president Ben Ali to leave Tunisia, and so contributed to a successful change of government in the country, Huesgen said such an initiative could have also been taken by Russia.

“If Russia had talked to Assad like Saudi Arabia talked to Ben Ali in the early 2011, things in Syria might be different today. Why couldn’t the Russians - and we asked them formally-  do the same thing as Saudi Arabia did with Ben Ali?” Heusgen said.

Merkel’s foreign policy adviser called on Russia to use its influence over Damascus to reach a political solution to the conflict.

“Russia is the country that supports the Assad regime the most. It has provided and is providing weapons to the Syrian government. Without Russia, Assad cannot survive,” Heusgen said.

“Russia has excellent relations to Assad… and I think there is somebody there who can talk to him,” Heusgen insisted.