MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Political settlement in Syria will start sooner or later, with sensible opposition involved and mutual compromise achieved, Sergey Ivanov, the chief of Russia’s presidential staff, said in an interview with TASS.
"It is crystal-clear that military means alone will never bring about a settlement in Syria. In the final count a political solution will have to begin to be looked for," Ivanov said adding that this process could be very complicated and controversial.
"Any sensible opposition can be negotiated with and compromises are to be mutual — that's pretty clear," he said calling it "a matter of the distant future."
"Originally, the idea of an intra-Syrian alliance in the struggle against the Islamic State was not ours: it came from the French President, Francois Hollande. He speculated that the government troops under Bashar Assad and the so-called Free Syrian Army might present a common front. Of course, if the latter does exist in reality, and is not a virtual brainchild of some armchair pundits in the West," Ivanov said.