GENEVA/BEIRUT/WASHINGTON: President Bashar Assad and his family have no role in the future Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday ahead of peace talks aimed at a political transition that are scheduled to resume next month.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh (ISIS) militants meanwhile said another 51 civilians had been killed in strikes in Syria and Iraq, raising the total number of civilians it has killed to 786 since 2014.

The coalition said in a statement that during September, it had assessed 127 reports and the 51 additional deaths occurred in 16 incidents going back as far as February that it deemed were credible.

The military’s official tally is far below those of outside organizations. The monitoring group Airwars says at least 5,637 civilians have been killed by coalition strikes.

In Switzerland, Tillerson said that the administration of U.S President Donald Trump backed the Geneva peace talks as the only way to end the more than 6-year-old conflict and move to a political transition and elections.

He was speaking after holding talks with U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who announced that stalled peace talks between the Syrian government and still-to-be-united opposition would resume in Geneva on Nov. 28.

“The United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar Assad in the government,” Tillerson told reporters in the Swiss city at the end of a weeklong trip that took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and India.

“It is our view and I have said this many times as well that we do not believe that there is a future for the Assad regime and Assad family. The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should be brought about.”When the Trump administration came into office it took the view that it was “not a prerequisite that Assad goes” before the transitional process started, he added.

Tillerson called his discussions with de Mistura “fruitful” and said the United States will “continue our efforts to de-escalate the violence in Syria.”

He said the only reason Assad’s forces had succeeded in turning the tide in the war against Daesh and other militants was “air support they have received from Russia.”

Tillerson said Iran, Assad’s other main ally, should not be seen as having made the difference in the defeat of Daesh in Syria.

“I do not see Syria as a triumph for Iran. I see Iran as a hanger-on. I don’t think that Iran should be given credit for the defeat of ISIS in Syria. Rather I think they have taken advantage of the situation.”

Supported by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, Assad appears militarily unassailable and last month Assad ally Hezbollah declared victory in the Syrian war.

Those forces have pushed Daesh back from large swaths of eastern Syria in recent months and over the past year have taken numerous pockets of rebel-held territory around Aleppo, Homs and Damascus.

“My reading is that Assad is here to stay for as long as the Russians and the Iranians have no alternative to him,” a Western diplomat told Reuters. “The date of his departure will depend on the Russians more than anyone else. Once – or if – they find someone better, he may go.”

Cease-fire deals brokered by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States in remaining rebel-held areas of western Syria have freed up manpower for Assad’s allies.

On the ground, the Syrian army and its allies seized an oil-pumping station in Deir al-Zor from Daesh, paving the way for an advance toward the militants’ last remaining Syrian stronghold, a Hezbollah-run news service reported Thursday.

The “T2” pumping station is “considered a launch pad for the army and its allies to advance toward the town of Albu Kamal ... which is considered the last remaining stronghold of the Daesh organization in Syria,” the report said.

Albu Kamal is located at the Syrian border with Iraq, just over the frontier from the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim. Iraq declared Thursday the start of an offensive to capture Al-Qaim and Rawa, the last patch of Iraqi territory still in Daesh hands.

Separately, Syrian regime shelling on the besieged rebel-held eastern Ghouta area near Damascus Thursday killed at least eight civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group said.

An AFP correspondent in Douma saw wounded civilians being treated at a makeshift clinic where families were mourning the dead.