Syria's President Bashar Assad has no future in politics, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in an interview to be published Sunday.
"I don't believe that Assad has a political future ahead of him which is supported by the Syrian people", Westerwelle told the German Sunday newspaper Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Westerwelle's ministry is reportedly in talks with members of the opposition in Syria, where the government has sought to crush a democracy movement with brutal force, killing around 1,650 civilians and arresting thousands of dissenters since March, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Group.
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Germany, President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel, pledged "additional measures" against the Syrian regime after at least 22 protestors were shot dead by security forces as conflict in the country intensifies over Ramadan.
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