(VOVworld) – Syrian President Bashar Assad is willing to hold parliamentary and presidential elections ahead of schedule and is ready himself to run for president, a visiting Russian lawmaker said on Sunday. After a meeting between a Russian delegation and President Assad in Damascus, Russian Communist party MP Aleksandr Yushenko said that the Syrian president is ready to hold elections if the people of Syria deem it necessary. Yushenko added that Assad is ready to conduct elections “with the participation of all political forces who want Syria to prosper”.