AMMAN, May 22: Britain and Qatar urged President Bashar al-Assad to step down, as major world powers gathered on Wednesday to seek ways toward a peaceful end to Syria’s conflict.

And the United States urged Assad to make a “commitment to find peace” in a country whose conflict has killed more than 94,000 people and threatens to spill beyond its borders.

“It is the longstanding view of the UK that Assad needs to go, and we have never been able to see any solution which involves him staying,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in Amman ahead of a Friends of Syria meeting to discuss a US-Russian proposal for peace talks.

“A political solution must be reached to end the conflict and meet the aspirations of the Syrian people who, as we know, demand changing the regime and changing President Bashar al-Assad, who insists on killing his people,” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani said in Doha.

The foreign ministers of Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are attending the gathering.

The United States and Russia, which back opposite sides in the conflict, earlier this month proposed a peace conference dubbed Geneva 2 to bring together rebels and representatives of Assad’s regime.

The aim of the conference, Hague stressed, would be to agree on the formation of “a transitional government with full executive authority, formed on the basis of mutual consent.” After initial uncertainty, the acting head of Syria’s opposition National Coalition is to be represented at the meeting in the person of its interim president, George Sabra, a coalition spokesman said.

Syria’s ambassador to Jordan, Bahjat Suleiman, lashed out at the meeting, describing it as a gathering of “enemies of Syria,” and insisted that Damascus was “defending itself.” Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country is not part of the group, was to host Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad for talks on the planned conference, Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency said.

He said the issue would be discussed with the opposition later on Wednesday.

At a pre-meeting news conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Geneva 2 would seek “to end the bloodshed what has cost tens of thousands of lives.” “We would call on President Assad to make the same commitment to find peace in his country.” —AFP