German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Russia to exert pressure on Damascus in order to push for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power. “We maintain permanent contacts with Russia so that we put pressure on the Syrian regime. It is necessary to find a political solution in order to form a new government in Syria,” Merkel said in her weekly address to Germans on Saturday. Merkel regretted that the U.N. Security Council members could not reach an agreement on mechanisms to reach a settlement for the nearly two-year-old crisis in Syria.