CAMP DAVID, Md, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told G8 leaders meeting at Camp David that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power, and pointed to Yemen as a model of how political transition could work there, the White House said yesterday.
Ben Rhodes, an Obama deputy national security adviser, said the recent focus on securing access for U.N. monitors and keeping track of ceasefires had distracted from the fundamental problems in Syria, where Assad, whose father ruled the country before him, has been attacking protesters for 14 months.
The United Nations estimates some 9,000 people have been killed in Syria since the start of the uprising in March 2011, when unrest that toppled leaders in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere was spreading across North Africa.
