(THE HILL) It's unlikely that Russia will drop its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad any time soon, President Obama conceded Tuesday.
Obama's comments at a global climate summit in Paris come one day after he urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to shift his strategy in Syria and back a political transition away from Assad.
"I don't expect that you're going to see a 180 turn on their strategy in the next several weeks," Obama said at a press conference. "They have invested for years now in keeping Assad in power. … That's going to take some time for them to change how they think about the issue."
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