DAMASCUS, Syria -- President Bashar Assad is willing to run in an early presidential election, hold parliamentary elections and discuss constitutional changes, but only after the defeat of "terrorist" groups, Russian lawmakers said after meeting with the Syrian leader on Sunday.
The meeting came as Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Turkey were discussing new ideas for a political transition to end Syria's nearly five-year civil war, which has killed 250,000 people and displaced half the country's population.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also met with Saudi Arabia's monarch, King Salman, to follow up on those discussions. Kerry met the king at his ranch outside the Saudi capital late Saturday.
The State Department said Kerry and the king reaffirmed their commitment to a unified, pluralistic and stable Syria without Assad as its leader and that they pledged to continue and intensify support to the moderate Syrian opposition while the political track is being pursued.
In a statement early Sunday, the kingdom said on the official Saudi Press Agency that Kerry and the king discussed "a number of issues of mutual concern," including Syria and the developments in the Palestinian territories.
The Western-backed Syrian opposition and other insurgent groups have refused to back any plan that does not include Assad's exit from power and were unlikely to view any elections held by his government as legitimate. The Syrian government considers the entire armed opposition to be "terrorists."
"This is all political equivocation," said Munzer Akbik, a member of the main opposition Syrian National Council. "There is no sense in talking about elections now before a real transition of power."
Communist lawmaker Alexander Yushchenko told the TASS news agency that Assad is ready to hold parliamentary elections "on the basis of all political forces that want Syria's prosperity." He said Assad is also ready to discuss constitutional changes and, if necessary, hold presidential elections, but only "after the victory over terrorism."
Assad won re-election by a landslide in a vote held more than a year ago. His term expires in 2021.
Sergei Gavrilov, another Communist lawmaker, told TASS that Assad was ready to hold parliamentary elections that included "reasonable, patriotic opposition forces." Parliament's term expires in May 2016.
All previous peace efforts have foundered on the question of Assad's fate, with the government and its allies insisting that he remain in power to oversee a transition and the opposition and its backers insisting he must go in order to end the war.
The latest push for a diplomatic solution to the conflict comes after Russia's intervention, which Moscow said is aimed at helping the government defeat the Islamic State group and other "terrorists."
But most of Russia's airstrikes have focused on areas where Islamic State militants do not have a major presence and have enabled a multipronged government ground offensive backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group and Iran's Revolutionary Guard against other insurgent groups.
Assad told the Russian delegation that Moscow's entry into the conflict is "the writing of a new history" and will determine the future of the region and the world, Syria's state-run SANA news outlet said.
It quoted Assad as saying the eradication of terrorist groups would lead to a political solution that "pleases the Syrian people and maintains Syria's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity."
After first questioning the presence of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army and calling it a "phantom structure," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Moscow is ready to aid the group in its fight against Islamic State militants. The Free Syrian Army is an amalgam of rebel groups, some headed by defectors from the Syrian army, and includes factions armed and trained by the CIA and others backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Lt. Col. Ahmed Saoud, a commander in the group, scoffed at the suggestion, saying "Russia must first admit that the regime of Assad must go."
"What we care about is Assad leaving, not turning this from a war against the regime to a war against terrorism," said Saoud, a defected army officer who leads the 13th Division group. He added that Russia was still striking rebel positions.
On Sunday, the New-York based Human Rights Watch said at least two airstrikes on Oct. 15, described by residents as Russian, killed 59 civilians, including 33 children.
One of the airstrikes killed 46 family members, including 32 children and 12 women who were all related to a commander affiliated with the Free Syrian Army in the village of Ghantou, in the central Homs province. The second airstrike was in another town nearby and killed 13 civilians and a rebel commander when it hit near a bakery. It was not clear if the commander was the target, the group said.
Human Rights Watch called on Moscow to investigate the attacks.
The conflict began with a wave of mostly peaceful protests in 2011 against the Assad family's four-decade rule and escalated into a full-blown civil war when his forces launched a bloody crackdown on dissent.
Information for this article was contributed by Lynn Berry and Matthew Lee of the Associated Press.
A Section on 10/26/2015