Moscow and Washington interpret the Geneva agreements on the settlement of the situation in Syria differently, the Chairman of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, Alexei Pushkov, has said.
"A war of interpretation broke out after the agreement on political transformation in Syria was signed in Geneva," he told reporters on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is convinced the agreement makes it clear to the current Syrian leadership that it must go, he said.
"Moscow, by contrast, said the agreement does not say a word about Assad's resignation and that he is not mentioned at all in it," the Russian lawmaker said.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the Russian view that the final document of the Geneva conference on Syria does not call for the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
"This does not follow from the document absolutely," he said at a press conference after the Geneva meeting, contradicting Clinton’s assertion that the document calls for Assad's resignation.
Pushkov warns that disagreement over the document’s meaning puts the US and Russia on a “collision” course.
"We are again witnessing a collision,” he said. “On the one hand we can see the United States and the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ who want Assad to resign. On the other Russia and China are seeking an immediate end to the violence and the earliest possible beginning of talks between the Syrian government and opposition.”
The only common ground between the sides is the belief that the situation in Syria must be settled politically, he said, adding that the US is making Assad’s resignation a precondition of the talks.
"We advocate talks between the government and opposition, and the U.S. and others – talks with Assad's simultaneous resignation. In fact, they are advancing a precondition for the talks," he said.
Furthermore, the United States and its supporters actively dictate what the Syrian opposition's position should be, Pushkov said.
"The rebels have announced already that they will not start talks before Assad's resignation, which indicates that they obey the logic dictated from abroad," the Duma official said.
A similar type of confrontation ensued over various interpretations of the UN Security Council's resolution 1973 on Libya, he added.
An international conference on ways to resolve the deteriorating situation in Syria was held in Geneva on June 29
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