UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Britain has changed its stance and now believes Syrian President Bashar Assad ‘could potentially be allowed’ to run for president if there was a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

“It is our view that Bashar al-Assad should go, it’s been our longstanding position. But we are open-minded about how that happens and the timescale on which that happens,” Johnson told the Lords International Relations Committee on Thursday, according to The Guardian.

The statement came a day before British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with recently inaugurated US President Donald Trump in Washington, which means all sides interested in peaceful settlement of the long-lasting conflict in Syria could reconsider their views on the matter.

There is a need to be “realistic about the way the landscape has changed” and to take a fresh look at the situation, Johnson said.

“We are getting to the stage where some sort of democratic resolution has got to be introduced,” he added.

“I would hope it would be possible to have a plebiscite or an election which is properly supervised by the UN and in which all the 11 million displaced persons, including the 4 million who are outside Syria now, are fully entitled to vote,” he said.

Source: RT