A former Russian prime minister who recently met Bashar al-Assad said the Syrian president told him that much of the fighting in the country's civil war would be over by the end of the year, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday. Russia has been Assad's most powerful supporter during the three-year conflict that activists say has killed more than 150,000 people, blocking Western and Arab efforts to drive him from power. Sergei Stepashin, who served as prime minister in 1999 under then-President Boris Yeltsin and **w heads a charitable organisation, met Assad in Damascus last week during a visit to the Middle East, according to Russian news reports. "To my question about how military issues were going, this is what Assad said: 'This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended.
04-07-2014, 10:00 PM
Assad tells Russian ex-PM 'active phase' of Syria war over this year
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