Saudi foreign minister’s Moscow talks end in discord on Assad

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday after a meeting in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow that Riyadh's position on the conflict in Syria has not changed and that there was no place for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the future of the country.
Al Jubeir reiterated that Assad "must go either through a political operation or by military one." However, his Russian counterpart said that Coalition’s strikes on ISIS did not fulfill its targets and that "toppling Assad will pave the way to ISIS to seize the power and control the whole country.

Lavrov said that while Russia was still disagreeing with Saudi Arabia on Assad's future, "there is no disagreement with Saudi over Geneva I." He said "early details" of how to coordinate international efforts to fight ISIS have started to emerge, adding that Moscow and Riyadh agreed that international players should join ranks to counter the militants who control swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Read DEBKAfile’s article for background.