Russia and Iran are likely to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ouster after the negotiations for transitional government begins in the war torn country, media reports said Friday.
"What you've got is a move that will end up with Assad going. And the Russians have got to the point privately where they accept that Assad will have gone by the end of this transition, they're just not prepared to say that publicly," a western diplomat said, The Telegraph reported.
Iranian diplomats said that Tehran would follow the Russian line on the Assad ouster.
"What was agreed was Iran and Russia will pursue one policy which will benefit Tehran, Moscow and Damascus. It is possible that the Syrian people decide Assad should leave, and then he must leave. If he cannot serve his country and his people, then a capable successor should run the country," an Iranian official said, according to Al Arabiya.
In an extraordinary show of international unity, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday unanimously approved a resolution on Syria calling for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks, according to DW. The resolution, however, remains silent on the question of Assad's future.
"We see a country in ruins, millions of its people scattered across the world, and a whirlwind of radicalism and sectarianism that challenges regional and global security," Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after the vote, according to UN News Centre.
