Assad seeks ‘step by step’ end to uprising

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has suggested ending his country’s conflict on a step-by-step basis, starting with districts that have suffered the worst violence, international mediator Kofi Annan has said.

The former UN secretary general met Assad in the capital Damascus, launching a round of diplomacy to try to revive his plan for ending Syria’s 16-month-old uprising in which rebels are fighting to topple the authoritarian leader.

Speaking after talks in Iran, Annan said Assad proposed “building an approach from the ground up in some of the districts where we have extreme violence — to try and contain the violence in those districts and, step by step, build up and end the violence across the country”.