President-elect Donald Trump's oldest son held talks about finding a way to end the war in Syria by cooperating with Russia, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Donald Trump Jr. met with 30 people in Paris last October, at an event hosted by the French think-tank Center of Political and Foreign Affairs, founded by Fabien Baussart and his wife, Randa Kassis, who have worked closely with Russia in their attempts to end the conflict. Kassis, who is Syrian-born, leads a Syrian opposition group backed by the Kremlin that aims for a political transition in the war-torn country.
"Randa Kassis has played a key role in Russian efforts to bring together Assad regime elements and opposition members acceptable to Moscow," Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has criticized President Barack Obama's policy on Syria, told the Journal. Tabler often speaks with Russian officials about the conflict. "Such efforts have been key to Moscow's approach to making Assad the basis for a transition in Syria."
"We have to be realistic. Who's on the ground in Syria? Not the U.S., not France," Kassis told the Journal in an interview from Moscow. "Without Russia, we can't have any solution in Syria."
"I think [Trump Jr. is] very pragmatic and is flexible."
"[Syria's] opposition got hope that [the] political process will move forward and Russia and the United States will reach accord on the issue of the Syrian crisis, because of Trump's victory," Kassis told Sputnik News just after Trump's victory. "Such hope and belief is the result of my personal meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in Paris in October."
Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager who now acts as a senior adviser to the president-elect, downplayed Trump Jr.'s contact with Kassis at the event.
"Don was addressing a roundtable in Paris, and she was present for that talk and at a group dinner for 30 people," she told the Journal in an email. "This event featured a number of opinion leaders from all over the world who were interested in the U.S. elections."
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