leave is really an indication that russia is finally facing reality and let's hope that this will lead to a reconfigure rags of the russian position. secretary clinton met with -- it may be that the united states and russia will now have an opportunity to work together. if russia could try to influence assad to leave as quickly as possible, that would certainly help the situation where too many people are being killed, and both russia and the united states have an interest in making sure that the chemical weapons stocks in syria don't fall into the hands of a radical islamist group or terrorist group which could happen in the event of the fall of the assad government, so american and russian interests may be converging at the end of this phase of the syrian conflict more than they were certainly, say, a year ago when russia was an unstinting supporter of the assad regime. >> nicolas burns, ending on an up note. thank you very much. >> good to see you. this just in. president obama moments ago