MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. CIA Director John Brennan merely wasted his time if his visit to Moscow was aimed only at discussing the future of Syria’s current President Bashar Assad, a Russian lawmaker said on Monday.
"If the CIA director came to Moscow with the only purpose to discuss the future of the current Syrian president he simply wasted his time," Frants Klintsevich, the first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house, told journalists.
He confirmed that Russia’s position on that matter "has not changed and cannot be changed." "Russia keeps on insisting that this issue is to be left aside at the Geneva talks," he stressed, adding that it doesn’t mean that Russia has any special relations with Bashar Assad.
"We will accept any choice of the Syrian people. But this choice should be done by democratic means and without any pressure from outside," the Russian lawmaker said. "Russia considers a key task of the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva to create all necessary conditions for free expression of will by the Syrian people."
The US embassy in Russia told TASS earlier that during his stay in Moscow in early March CIA Director John Brennan insisted on Assad’s stepping down and real political transition in Syria.