Syria's government

A "significant increase" of air strikes on Syrian hospitals recently has killed at least 35 patients and medical staff and wounded 72, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Oct. 29.

The Turkish army has hit the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria twice for violating the red line Turkey has imposed on the western part of the Euphrates River, the Turkish prime minister has said. 

"We said: 'The PYD will not pass to the west of the Euphrates. We'll hit them if they do.' And we hit them twice.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sept.4 that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was willing to hold early parliamentary elections and share power with the "healthy" opposition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is to host the Jordanian King and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in Moscow on Aug. 25 to discuss the Syrian crisis and take part in a showcase of Russia's military industry.

Human Rights Watch urged the United Nations on Aug. 20 to impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government after air strikes on a rebel town near the capital killed more than 100 people.

Syria's main opposition group on Aug. 13 insisted President Bashar al-Assad must go and rejected calls to join forces against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists as it met with Russia's foreign minister.  

Iran and the European Union have agreed to start talks on issues including confronting terrorism, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a news conference with the EU's chief diplomat in Tehran on July 28.

Syria's official news agency SANA on May 10 denounced Turkey's prime minister for making a cross-border trip to a historic tomb inside Syrian territory, calling the visit a "clear aggression".

France insisted March 16 that a solution to the crisis in Syria could only come through a "political negotiation between different Syrian parties" but reiterated that President Bashar al-Assad "cannot" be one of them.
      

Any resolution to the fighting in Syria must involve President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said on Feb. 13 in the first such acknowledgement by the UN.        

"President Assad is part of the solution," de Mistura told a joint press conference with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in Vienna.