Trump Could Enhance US-Russian Cooperation on Syria - Opposition Figure

The victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections will have a positive impact on cooperation between Moscow and Washington on Syria, Randa Kassis, the chair from the Syrian opposition Movement of the Pluralistic Society, told Sputnik on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, Trump secured at least 290 Electoral College votes, which is more than 270 required to win the presidency.

"[Syria's] opposition got hope that political process will move forward and Russia and the United States will reach accord on the issue of the Syrian crisis, because of Trump's victory. Such hope and belief is the result of my personal meeting with Donald Trump junior in Paris in October… I succeeded to pass Trump, through the talks with his son, the idea of how we can cooperate together to reach the agreement between Russia and the United States on Syria," Kassis said.

She added that there was an understanding that Trump's team had realized that it was impossible to reach an agreement between Moscow and Washington, if to consider Russia an enemy and there was only political solution to the ongoing crisis in the Middle Eastern nation.

According to the politician, the Syrian opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) hoped for victory of the Democratic Party's Hillary Clinton and they had even ended their participation in Geneva talks on Syrian settlement after Trump's victory.

During his election campaign Trump said that the incumbent Syrian President Bashar Assad was not an ideal Syria's governor, but several opposition groups that could come to power after his resignation could be worse. Trump said that his priority in Syria would be to eliminate the Daesh jihadist group and not to remove Assad from power.