PARIS: Faced with a seemingly unending bloody conflict in Syria and the rise of the Islamic State group, is President Bashar al-Assad the lesser of the country's evils and should the West re-engage with him?
While world powers such as the United States, France and Britain refuse to have anything to do with a leader the French prime minister described as a "butcher", the question is increasingly being raised within these countries.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, echoed this feeling this month when he said Assad was "part of the solution" to end a conflict that has killed more than 210,000 people, displaced nearly half the country's population and spilled over into neighbouring nations.
And this week, a private trip to Damascus by French lawmakers who met Assad for talks drew an angry response from the French government which cut diplomatic ties with Syria in 2012 -- but was feted by media in the conflict-torn country.
"The Assad regime is trying to give the impression of unstoppable momentum towards normalisation of ties," said Shashank Joshi, senior research fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute defence and security think-tank.
But he said this was "exaggerated" and that while Western and Syrian intelligence agencies may have had low- to mid-level contacts, there had been no formal coordination.
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