State Department walks back Kerry's comments on Syria, Assad

The State Department on Sunday swiftly clarified Secretary of State John Kerry's suggestion that the U.S. could negotiate with embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end that nation's four-year-old civil war.

Negotiations toward ending the war would certainly involve a representative of the Assad government, a State Department spokesperson said, but, "It has never been and would not be Assad who would negotiate." Earlier Sunday, Kerry said in an interview with CBS that the U.S. would "have to negotiate in the end," and that the administration was "pushing for [Assad] to come and do that."

Assad on Monday panned the idea of direct negotiations anyway, saying, "Any talk on the future of the Syrian president is for the Syrian people."

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